
■ 



I 



■ 






lit;;:'' 

■ 



THE COMPLEX VISION 



/ 



THE BOOKS OF 
JOHN COWPER POWYS 

"Visions and Revisions," Essays on 
Literature 

"Suspended Judgments," Essays on 
Literature 

"One Hundred Best Books" 

"Confessions of Two Brothers" 
(with L. Powys) 

"Wood and Stone," A Romance 

"Rodmoor," A Romance 

"Mandraoora," Poems 

"The War and Culture" 

"Wolf's-bane," Rhymes 



THE 
COMPLEX VISION 



BY 

JOHN COWPER POWYS 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1920 



;P7 



Copyright, 1920. 
By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. 



VAIL-BALLOU COMPANY 

•INBHAMTON AND NEW YORK 



©CU576451 



DEDICATED 

TO 

LITTLETON ALFRED 



PROLOGUE 

What I am anxious to attempt in this anticipatory sum- 
mary of the contents of this book is a simple estimate of its 
final conclusions, in such a form as shall eliminate all tech- 
nical terms and reduce the matter to a plain statement, 
intelligible as far as such a thing can be made intelligible, 
to the apprehension of such persons as have not had the 
luck, or the ill-luck, of a plunge into the ocean of meta- 
physic. 

j A large portion of the book deals with what might be 
called our instrument of research; in other words, with the 
problem of what particular powers of insight the human 
mind must use, if its vision of reality is to be of any deeper 
or more permanent value than the " passing on the wing," 
so to speak, of individual fancies and speculations. 

This instrument of research I find to be the use, by the 
human person, of all the various energies of personality 
concentrated into one point; and the resultant spectacle 
of things or reality of things, which this concentrated vi- 
sion makes clear, I call the original revelation of the com- 
plex vision of man. 

Having analyzed in the earlier portions of the book the 
peculiar nature of our organ of research and the peculiar 
difficulties — amounting to a very elaborate work of art — 
which have to be overcome before this concentration takes 
place, I proceed in the later portions of the book to make 
as clear as I can what kind of reality it is that we actually 
do succeed in grasping, when this concentrating process has 
been achieved. I indicate incidentally that this desirable 
concentration of the energies of personality is so difficult 

vii 



viii PROLOGUE 

a thing that we are compelled to resort to our memory of 
what we experienced in rare and fortunate moments in 
order to establish its results. I suggest that it is not to 
our average moments of insight that we have to appeal, 
but to our exceptional moments of insight ; since it is only 
at rare moments in our lives that we are able to enter into 
what I call the eternal vision. 

To what, then, does this conclusion amount, and what is 
this resultant reality, in as far as we are able to gather it 
up and articulate its nature from the vague records of 
our memory ? 

I have endeavoured to show that it amounts to the fol- 
lowing series of results. What we are, in the first place, 
assured of is the existence within our own individual body 
of a real actual living thing composed of a mysterious 
substance wherein what we call mind and what we call 
matter are fused and intermingled. This is our real and 
self-conscious soul, the thing in us which says, "I am I," 
of which the physical body is only one expression, and of 
which all the bodily senses are only one gateway of re- 
ceptivity. 

The soul within us becomes aware of its own body simul- 
taneously with its becoming aware of all the other bodies 
which fill the visible universe/ It is then by an act of faith 
or imagination that the soul within us takes for granted 
and assumes that there must be a soul resembling our own 
soul within each one of those alien bodies, of which, simul- 
taneously with its own, it becomes aware. 

And since the living basis of our personality is this real 
soul within us, it follows that all those energies of person- 
ality, whose concentration is the supreme work of art, are 
the energies of this real soul. If, therefore, we assume 
that all the diverse physical bodies which fill the universe 
possess, each of them, an inner soul resembling our own 
soul, we are led to the conclusion that just as our own soul 



PROLOGUE ix 

half -creates and half -discovers the general spectacle of 
things which it names "the universe," so all the alien souls 
in the world half-create and half-discover what they feel as 
their universe. 

If our revelation stopped at this point we should have to 
admit that there was not one universe, but as many uni- 
verses are there are living souls. It is at this point, how- 
ever, that we become aware that all these souls are able, 
in some degree or other, to enter into communication. 
They are able to do this both by the bodily sounds and 
signs which constitute language and by certain immaterial 
vibrations which seem to make no use of the body at all. 
In this communication between different souls, as far as 
humanity is concerned, a very curious experience has to be 
recorded. 

When two human beings dispute together upon any im- 
portant problem of life, there is always an implicit appeal 
made by both of them to an invisible arbiter, or invisible 
standard of arbitration, in the heart of which both seem 
aware that the reality, upon which their opinions differ, is 
to be found in its eternal truth. What then is this invisi- 
ble standard of arbitration? Whatever it is, we are com- 
pelled to assume that it satisfies and transcends the deepest 
and furthest reach of personal vision in all the souls that 
approach it. And what is the deepest and furthest reach 
of our individual soul 1 This seems to be a projection upon 
the material plane of the very stuff and substance of the 
soul's inmost nature. 

This very "stuff" of the soul, this outflowing of the 
substance of the soul, I name ' ' emotion ' ' ; and I find it to 
consist of two eternally conflicting elements; what I call 
the element of "love," and what I call the element of 
"malice." This emotion of love, which is the furthest 
reach of the soul, I find to be differentiated when it comes 
into contact with the material universe into three ultimate 



_i- 



x PROLOGUE 

ways of taking life; namely, the way which we name the 
pursuit of beauty, the way which we name the pursuit of 
goodness, and the way which we name the pursuit of truth. 
But these three ways of taking life find always their unity 
and identity in that emotion of love which is the psychic 
substance of them all. 

The invisible standard of arbitration, then, to which an 
appeal is always made, consciously or unconsciously, when 
two human beings dispute upon the mystery of life, is a 
standard of arbitration which concerns the real nature 
of love, and the real nature of what we call "the good" 
and "the true" and "the beautiful." 

And since we have found in personality the one thing in 
existence of which we are absolutely assured, because we 
are aware of it, on the inside, so to speak, in the depths of 
our own souls, it becomes necessary that in place of think- 
ing of this invisible standard as any spiritual or chemical 
"law" in any stream of "life-force" we should think of it 
as being as personal as we ourselves are personal. For 
since what we call the universe has been already described 
as something which is half -created and half-discovered by 
the vision of some one soul in it or of all the souls in it, it 
is clear that we have no longer any right to think of these 
ultimate ideas as "suspended" in the universe, or as gen- 
eral "laws" of the universe. They are suspended in the 
individual soul, which half-creates and half-discovers the 
universe according to their influence. 

,^ Personality is the only permanent thing in life ; and if 
truth, beauty, goodness, and love, are to have permanence 
they must depend for their permanence not upon some 
imaginary law in a universe half-created by personality 
but upon the indestructible nature of personality itself. 

The human soul is aware of an invisible standard of 
beauty. To this invisible standard it is compelled to make 
an unconscious appeal in all matters of argument and dis- 



PROLOGUE xi 

cussion. This standard must therefore be rooted in a per- 
sonal super-human vision and we are driven to the con- 
clusion that some being or beings exist, superior to man, 
and yet in communication with man. And since what we 
see around us is a world of many human and sub-human 
personalities, it is, by analogy, a more natural supposition 
to suppose that these supernatural beings are many than 
that they are one. 

What the human soul, therefore, together with all other 
souls, attains in its concentrated moments is "an eternal 
vision' ' wherein what is mortal in us merges itself in what 
is immortal. 

But if what we call the universe is a thing made up of 
all the various universes of all the various souls in space 
and time, we are forbidden to find in this visible material 
universe, whose " reality " does not become "really real" 
until it has received the "hall-mark/' so to speak, of the 
eternal vision, any sort of medium or link which makes it 
possible for these various souls to communicate with one 
another. 

This material universe, thus produced by the concen- 
trated visions of all the souls entering into the eternal vi- 
sion, is made up of all the physical bodies of all such souls, 
linked together by the medium of universal ether. But 
although the bodies which thus occupy different points of 
space are linked together by the universal ether, we are not 
permitted to find in this elemental ether, the medium which 
links the innumerable souls together. And we are not per- 
mitted this because in our original assumption such souls 
are themselves the half -creators, as well as the half -discov- 
erers, of that universe whose empty spaces are thus filled. 
The material ether which links all bodies together cannot, 
since it is a portion of such an universe, be itself the me- 
dium from the midst of which these souls create that uni- 
verse. 



xii PROLOGUE 

But if, following our methed of regarding every material 
substance in the world as the body of some sort of soul, we 
regard this universal ether as itself the body of an universal 
or elemental soul, then we are justified in finding in this 
elemental omnipresent soul diffused through space, the 
very medium we need; out of the midst of which all the 
souls which exist project their various universes. 

We are thus faced by a universe which is the half -cre- 
ation and half -discovery of all living souls, a universe the 
truth and beauty of which depend upon the eternal vision, 
a universe whose material substance is entirely composed of 
the actual physical bodies of those very souls whose vision 
half -creates and half -discovers it. 

"We thus reach our conclusion that there is nothing in the 
world except personality. The material universe is en- 
tirely made up of personal bodies united by the personal 
body of the elemental ether. What we name the universe, 
therefore, is an enormous group of bodies joined together 
by the body of the ether; such bodies being the physical 
expression of a corresponding group of innumerable souls 
joined together by the soul of the ether. 

In the portions of this book which deal with the creative 
energy of the soul I have constantly used the expression 
" objective mystery"; but in my concluding chapter I have 
rejected and eliminated this word as a mere step or stage 
in human thought which does not correspond to any final 
reality. When I use the term "objective mystery" I am 
referring to the original movement of the individual mind 
when it first stretches out to what is outside itself. What 
is outside itself consists in reality of nothing but an un- 
fathomable group of bodies and souls joined together by 
the body and soul of the ether which fills space. 

But since, in its first stretching out towards these things, 
all it is aware of is the presence of a plastic something 
which lends itself, under the universal curve of space, to 



PROLOGUE xiii 

the moulding and shaping and colouring of its creative 
vision, it is natural enough to look about for a name by 
which we can indicate this original "clay" or "matter" or 
"world-stuff" out of which the individual soul creates its 
vision of an universe. And the name "objective mystery" 
is the name by which, in the bulk of this book, I have indi- 
cated this mysterious world-stuff, by which the soul finds 
itself surrounded, both in regard to the matter of its own 
body and in regard to the still more alien matter of which 
all other bodies are composed. 

But when by the use of the term objective mystery I 
have indicated that general and universal something, not 
itself, by which the soul is confronted, that something 
which, like a white screen, or a thick mass of darkness, 
waits the moving lamp of the soul to give it light and col- 
our, it becomes clear that the name itself does not cover 
any actual reality other than the actual reality of all the 
bodies in the world joined together by the universal ether. 

Is the term "objective mystery," therefore, no more than 
the name given to that first solid mass of external impres- 
sion which the insight of the soul subsequently reduces to 
the shapes, colours, scents, sounds, and all the more subtle 
intimations springing from the innumerable bodies and 
souls which fill universal space ? No. It is not quite this. 
It is a little deeper than this. It is, in fact, the mind's 
recognition that behind this first solid mass of external im- 
pression which the soul's own creative activity creates into 
its "universe" there must exist "something," some real 
substance, or matter, or world-stuff, in contact with which 
the soul half-creates and half -discovers the universe which 
it makes its own. 

When, however, the soul has arrived at the knowledge 
that its own physical body is the outward expression of its 
inner self, and when by an act of faith or imagination it 
has extended this knowledge to every other bodily form in 



xiv PROLOGUE 

its universe, it ceases to be necessary to use the term " ob- 
jective mystery"; since that something which the soul felt 
conscious of as existing behind the original solid mass of 
impressions is now known by the soul to be nothing else 
than an incredible number of living personalities, each with 
its own body. 

And just as I make use in this book of the term "ob- 
jective mystery," and then discard it in my final conclu- 
sion, so I make an emphatic and elaborate use of the term 
" creative" and then discard it, or considerably modify it, 
in my final conclusion. 

My sequence of thought, in this matter of the soul's "cre- 
ative" power, may thus be indicated. In the process of 
preparing the ground for those rare moments of illumina- 
tion wherein we attain the eternal vision the soul is occu- 
pied, and the person attempting to think is occupied, with 
what I call "the difficult work of art" of concentrating its 
various energies and fusing them into one balanced point 
of rhythmic harmony. This effort of contemplative ten- 
sion is a "creative effort" similar to that which all artists 
are compelled to make. In addition to this aspect of what 
I call "creation," there also remains the fact that the in- 
dividual soul modifies and changes that first half -real some- 
thing which I name the objective mystery, until it becomes 
all the colours, shapes, sounds and so forth, produced by the 
impression upon the soul of all the other personalities 
brought into contract with it by the omnipresent personal- 
ity of the universal ether. 

The words "creation" and "creative" are thus made 
descriptive in this book of the simple and undeniable fact 
that everything which the mind touches is modified and 
changed by the mind; and that ultimately the universe 
which any mind beholds is an universe half -created by the 
mood of the mind which beholds it. And since the mood 
of any mind which contemplates the universe is dependent, 



PROLOGUE xv 

upon the relative "overcoming" in that particular soul of 
the emotion of malice by love, or of the emotion of love by 
malice, it becomes true to say that any universe which 
comes into existence is necessarily "created" by the orig- 
inal struggle, in the depths of some soul or other, of the 
conflicting emotions of love and malice. 

And since the ideal of the emotion of love is life, and the 
ideal of the emotion of hate is death, it becomes true to say 
that the emotion of love is identical with the creative en- 
ergy in all souls, while the emotion of malice is identical 
with the force which resists creation in all souls. 

Why then do I drop completely, or at least considerably 
modify, this stress upon the soul 's ' ' creative ' ' power in my 
final chapter? I am led to do so by the fact that such 
creative power in the soul is, after all, only a preparation 
for the eternal vision. Creative energy implies effort, ten- 
sion, revolution, agitation, and the pain of birth. All these 
things have to do with preparing the ground for the eternal 
vision, and with the final gesture of the soul, by which it 
enters into that ultimate rhythm. But once having en- 
tered into that vision — and in these things time is nothing 
— the rhythm which results is a rhythm upon which the 
soul rests, even as music rests upon music, or life rests 
upon life. 

And the eternal vision, thus momentarily attained, and 
hereafter gathered together from the deep cisterns of 
memory, liberates us, when we are under its influence, from 
that contemplative or creative tension whereby we reached 
it. It is then that the stoical pride of the soul, in the 
strength of which it has endured so much, undergoes the 
process of an immense relaxation and relief. An inde- 
scribable humility floods our being; and the mood with 
which we contemplate the spectacle of life and death ceases 
to be an individual mood and becomes an universal mood. 
The isolation, which was a necessary element in our ad- 



■ 



xvi PROLOGUE 

vance to this point, melts away when we have reached it. 
It is not that we lose our personality, it is that we merge 
ourselves by the outflowing of love, in all the personalities 
to which the procession of time gives birth. 

And the way we arrive at this identification of ourselves 
with all souls, living or dead or unborn, is by our love for 
that ideal symbolized in the figure of Christ in whom this 
identification has already been achieved. This, and noth- 
ing less than this, is the eternal vision. For the only 
1 'god" among all the arbiters of our destiny, with whom 
we are concerned, is Christ. To enter into his secret is 
to enter into their secret. To be aware of him is to be 
aware of everything in the world, mortality and immortal- 
ity, the transitory and the eternal. 

Life then, as I have struggled to interpret it in this book, 
seems to present itself as an unfathomable universe en- 
tirely made up of personalities. What we call inanimate 
substances are all of them the bodies, or portions of the 
bodies, of living personalities. The immense gulf, popu- 
larly made between the animate and the inanimate, thus 
turns out to be an unfounded illusion ; and the whole uni- 
verse reveals itself as an unfathomable series, or congeries, 
of living personalities, united by the presence of the omni- 
present ether which fills universal space. 

It is of little moment, the particular steps or stages of 
thought, by which one mind, among so many, arrives at this 
final conclusion. Other minds, following other tracks 
across the desert, might easily reach it. The important 
thing to note is that, once reached, such a conclusion seems 
to demand from us a "very definite attitude toward life. 
For if life, if the universe, is entirely made up of person- 
ality, then our instinctive or acquired attitude toward per- 
sonality becomes the path by which we approach truth. 

To persons who have not been plunged, luckily or un- 
luckily, in the troublesome sea of metaphysical phrases, the 



PROLOGUE xvii 

portions of this book which will be most tiresome are the 
portions which deal with those " half -realities" or logical 
abstractions of the human reason, when such reason 
11 works" in isolation from the other attributes of the soul. 
Such reason, working in isolation, inevitably produces cer- 
tain views of life; and these views of life, although unreal 
when compared with the reality produced by the full play 
of all our energies, cannot be completely disregarded if our 
research is to cover the whole field of humanity 's reactions. 
Since there is always an irresistible return to these meta- 
physical views of life directly the soul loses the rhythm of 
its total being, it seems as if it were unwise to advance 
upon our road until we have discounted such views and 
placed them in their true perspective, as unreal but in- 
evitable abstractions. 

The particular views of life which this recurrent move- 
ment of the logical reason results in, are, first, the reduction 
of everything to an infinite stream of pure thought, outside 
both time and space, unconscious of itself as in any way 
personal ; and, in the second place, the reduction of every- 
thing to one universal self-conscious spirit, in whose abso- 
lute and infinite being independent of space and time all 
separate existences lose themselves and are found to be 
illusions. 

What I try to make clear in the metaphysical portion of 
this book is that these two views of life, while always liable 
to return upon us with every renewed movement of the 
isolated reason, are in truth unreal projections of man's im- 
perious mind. When we subject them to an analysis based 
upon our complete organ of research they show themselves 
to be nothing but tyrannous phantoms, abstracted from the 
genuine reality of the soul as it exists within space and 
time. 

What I seek to show throughout this book is that the 
world resolves itself into an immeasurable number of per- 



xviii PROLOGUE 

sonalities held together by the personality of the universal 
ether and by the unity of one space and one time. Even 
of space and time themselves, since the only thing that 
really " fills them," so to speak, to the brim, is the universal 
ether, it might be said that they are the expression of this 
universal ether in its relation to all the objects which it 
contains. 

Thus the conclusion to which I am driven is that the 
dome of space, out of which the sun shines by day and the 
stars by night, contains no vast gulfs of absolute nothing- 
ness into which the soul that hates life may flee away and 
be at rest. At the same time the soul that hates life need 
not despair. The chances, as we come to estimate them, for 
and against the soul's survival after death, seem so curi- 
ously even, that it may easily happen that the extreme long- 
ing of the soul for annihilation may prove in such a balanc- 
ing of forces the final deciding stroke. And quite apart 
from death, I have tried to show in this book, how in the 
mere fact of the unfathomable depths into which all phys- 
ical bodies as well as all immaterial souls recede there is an 
infinite opportunity for any soul to find a way of escape 
from life, either by sinking into the depths of its own phys- 
ical being, or by sinking into the depths of its own spiritual 
substance. 

The main purpose of the book reveals, however, the only 
escape from all the pain and misery of life which is worthy 
of the soul of man. And this is not so much an escape 
from life as a transfiguring of the nature of life by means 
of a newly born attitude toward it. This attitude toward 
life, of which I have tried to catch at least the general out- 
lines, is the attitude which the soul struggles to maintain 
by gathering together all its diffused memories of those 
rare moments when it entered into the eternal vision. 

And I have indicated as clearly as I could how it comes 
about that in the sphere of practical life the only natural 



PROLOGUE xix 

and consistent realization of this attitude would be the 
carrying into actual effect of what I call "the idea of com- 
munism." 

This "idea of communism," in which the human im- 
plications of the eternal vision become realized, is simply 
the conception of a system of human society founded upon 
the creative instinct, instead of upon the possessive instinct 

' in humanity. 

I endeavour to make clear that such a reorganization of 

I society upon such a basis does not imply any radical change 

i in human nature. It only implies a liberation of a force 
that already exists, of the force in the human soul that is 
centrifugal, or outflowing, as opposed to the force that is 

i centripetal, or indrawing. Such a force has always been 
active in the lives of individuals. It only remains to lib- 
erate that force until it reaches the general consciousness 
of the race, to make such a reconstruction of human society 
not only ideal, but actual and effective. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Complex Vision 1 

II The Aspects of the Complex Vision ... 20 

III The Soul's Apex-Thought 56 

IV The Revelation of the Complex Vision . . 71 
V The Ultimate Duality 100 

VI The Ultimate Ideas 120 

VII The Nature of Art 160 

VIII The Nature of Love 194 

IX The Nature of the Gods 214 

X The Figure of Christ 225 

XI The Illusion of Dead Matter .... 248 

XII Pain and Pleasure 270 

XIII The Reality of the Soul in Relation to Mod- 

ern Thought 293 

XIV The Idea of Communism 323 

Conclusion 339 



/ 



PREPACE 

The speculative system which I have entitled "The Phi- 
losophy of the Complex Vision" is an attempt to bring into 
prominence, in the sphere of definite and articulate thought, 
those scattered and chaotic intimations which hitherto have 
found expression rather in Art than in Philosophy. 

It has come to be fatally clear to me that between the 
great metaphysical systems of rationalized purpose and the 
actual shocks, experiences, superstitions, illusions, disillu- 
sions, reactions, hope and despairs, of ordinary men and 
women there is a great gulf fixed. It has become clear to 
me that the real poignant personal drama in all our lives, 
together with those vague "marginal" feelings which over- 
shadow all of us with a sense of something half -revealed 
and half withheld, has hardly any point of contact with 
these formidable edifices of pure logic. 

On the other hand the tentative, hesitating, ambiguous 
hypotheses of Physical Science, transforming themselves 
afresh with every new discovery, seem, when the porten- 
tous mystery of Life 's real secret confronts us, to be equally 
remote and elusive. 

When in such a dilemma one turns to the vitalistic and 
pragmatic speculations of a Bergson or a William James 
there is an almost more hopeless revulsion. For in these 
pseudo-scientific, pseudo-psychological methods of thought 
something most profoundly human seems to us to be 
completely neglected. I refer to the high and passionate 
imperatives of the heroic, desperate, treasonable heart of 
man. 

What we have come to demand is some intelligible sys- 

xxiii 



xxiv PREFACE 

tern of imaginative reason which shall answer the exigencies 
not only of our more normal moods but of those moods into 
which we are thrown by the pressure upon us — apparently 
from outside the mechanical sequence of cause and effect — 
of certain mysterious Powers in the background of our ex- 
perience, such as hitherto have only found symbolic and 
representative expression in the ritual of Art and Religion. 

"What we have come to demand is some flexible, mal- 
leable, rhythmic system which shall give an imaginative 
and yet a rational form to the sum total of those manifold 
and intricate impressions which make up the life of a real 
person upon a real earth. 

What we have come to demand is that the centre of 
gravity in our interpretation of life should be restored to 
its natural point of vantage, namely, to the actual living 
consciousness of an actual living human being. 

And it is precisely these demands that the philosophy of 
the complex vision attempts to satisfy. It seeks to satisfy 
them by using as its organ of research the balanced ' 'en- 
semble" of man's whole nature. It seeks to satisfy them 
by using as its " material " the whole variegated and con- 
tradictory mass of feelings and reactions to feelings, which 
the natural human being with his superstitions, his sym- 
pathies, his antipathies, his loves and his hates, his surmises, 
his irrational intuitions, his hopes and fears, is of necessity 
bound to experience as he moves through the world. 

It seeks, in fact, to envisage from within and without the 
confused hurly-burly of life's drama; and to give to this 
contradictory and complicated spectacle the aesthetic ra- 
tionality or imaginative inevitableness of a rhythmic work 
of art. 

In this attempt the philosophy of the complex vision is 

bound to recognize, and include in its rational form, much 

that remains mysterious, arbitrary, indetermined, organic, 

i obstinately illogical. For the illogical is not necessarily 



PREFACE xxv 

the unintelligible, so long as the reason which we use is that 
same imaginative and clairvoyant reason, which, in its 
higher measure, sustains the vision of the poets and the 
artists. * 

By the use of this fuller, richer, more living, more con- 
crete instrument of research, the conclusions we arrive at 
will have in them more of the magic of Nature, and will be 
closer to the actual palpable organic mystery of Life, than 
either the abstract conclusions of metaphysic or the cau- 
tious, impersonal hypotheses of experimental physical 
science. 



THE COMPLEX VISION 



CHAPTER I 

THE COMPLEX VISION 

A philosophy is known by its genuine starting-point. 
This is also its final conclusion, often very cunningly con- 
cealed. Such a conclusion may be presented to us as the 
logical result of a long train of reasoning, when really it 
was there all the while as one single vivid revelation of the 
complex vision. 

Like travellers who have already found, by happy acci- 
dent, the city of their desire, many crafty thinkers hasten 
hurriedly back to the particular point from which they 
intend to be regarded as having started ; nor in making this 
secret journey are they forgetful to erase their footsteps 
from the sand, so that when they publicly set forth it shall 
appear to those who follow them that they are guided not 
by previous knowledge of the way but by the inevitable 
necessity of pure reason. 

I also, like the rest, must begin with what will turn out 
to be the end ; but unlike many I shall openly indicate this 
fact and not attempt to conceal it. 

c My starting-point is nothing less than what I call the 
original revelation of man's complex vision; and I regard 
this original revelation as something which is arrived at by 
the use of a certain synthetic activity of all the attributes 
of this vision. And this synthetic activity of the complex 
vision I call its apex-thought. - 

This revelation is of a peculiar nature, which must be 

1 



2 THE COMPLEX VISION 

grasped, at least in its general outlines, before we can ad- 
vance a step further upon that journey which is also a 
return. 

It might be maintained that before attempting to phil- 
osophize upon life, the question should be asked . . . "why 
philosophize at all?" And again . . . "what are the mo- 
tive-forces which drive us into this process which we call 
philosophizing ? ' ' 

*- To philosophize is to articulate and express our personal 
reaction to the mystery which we call life, both with regard 
to the nature of that mystery and with regard to its mean- 
ing and purpose. * 

My answer to the question "Why do we philosophize V * 
is as follows. We philosophize for the same reason that we 
move and speak and laugh and eat and love. In other 
words, we philosophize because man is a philosophical ani- 
mal. We breathe because we cannot help breathing and 
we philosophize because we cannot help philosophizing. 
We may be as sceptical as we please. Our very scepticism 
is the confession of an implicit philosophy. To suppress 
the activity of philosophizing is as impossible as to sup- 
press the activity of breathing. 

Assuming then that we have to philosophize, the ques- 
tion naturally arises . . . how have we to philosophize if 
our philosophy is to be an adequate expression of our com- 
plete reaction to life ? 

By the phrase "man's complex vision" I am trying to 
indicate the elaborate and intricate character of the organ 
of research which we have to use. All subsequent discov- 
eries are rendered misleading if the total activity, at least 
in its general movement, of our instrument of research is 
not brought into focus. This instrument of research which 
I have named "man's complex vision" implies his posses- 
sion, at the moment when he begins to philosophize, of 
certain basic attributes or energies. 



THE COMPLEX VISION 3 

The advance from infancy to maturity naturally means, 
when the difference between person and person is consid- 
ered, an unequal and diverse development of these basic 
energies. Nor even when the person is full grown will it be 
found that these energies exist in him in the same propor- 
tion as they exist in other persons. But if they existed 
in every person in precisely equal proportions we should 
not all, even then, have the same philosophy. 

We should not have this, because though the basic activ- 
ities were there in equal proportion, each living con- 
crete person whose activities these were would necessarily 
colour the resultant vision with the stain or dye of 
his original difference from all the rest. For no two liv- 
ing entities in this extraordinary world are exactly the 
same. 

"What is left for us, then, it might be asked, but to 
"whisper our conclusions" and accept the fact that all 
" philosophies" must be different, as they are all the pro- 
jection of different personalities ? Nothing, as far as pure 
logic is concerned, is left for us but this. Yet it remains 
as an essential aspect of the process of philosophizing that 
we should endeavour to bring over to our vision as many 
other visions as we can succeed in influencing. For since 
we have the power of communicating our thought to one 
another and since it is of the very nature of the complex 
vision to be exquisitely sensitive to influences from outside, 
it is a matter of primordial necessity to us all that we 
should exercise this will to influence and this will to be in- 
fluenced. 

And just as in the case of persons sympathetic to our- 
selves the activity of philosophizing is attended by the emo- 
tion of love and the instinct of creation, so in the case of 
persons antagonistic to ourselves the activity of philoso- 
phizing is attended by the emotion of hate and the instinct 
of destruction. For philosophy being the final articulation 



4 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of a personal reaction to life, is penetrated through and 
through with the basic energies of life. 

On the one hand there is a ' ' Come unto me, all ye . . . ' ' 
and on the other there is a "Woe unto you, Scribes and 
Pharisees, hypocrites ! ' ' Just because the process of philos- 
ophizing is necessarily personal, it is evident that the pri- 
mordial aspect of it which implies "the will to influence" 
must tally with some equally primordial reciprocity, imply- 
ing "the will to be influenced. " 

That it does so tally with this is proved by the existence 
of language. 

This medium of expression between living things does 
not seem to be confined to the human race. Some reci- 
procal harmony of energy, corresponding to our complex 
vision, seems to have created many mysterious modes of 
communication by which myriads of sub-human beings, and 
probably also myriads of super-human beings, act and re- 
act on one another. 

But the existence of language, though it excludes the 
possibility of absolute difference, does not, except by an 
act of faith, necessitate that any sensation we name by the 
same name is really identical with the sensation which an- 
other person feels. And this difficulty is much further 
complicated by the fact that words themselves tend in the 
process to harden and petrify, and in their hardening to 
form, as it were, solid blocks of accretion which resist and 
materially distort the subtle and evasive play of the human 
psychology behind them. 

So that not only are we aware that the word which we 
use does not necessarily represent to another what it rep- 
resents to ourself, but we are also aware that it does not, 
except in a hard and inflexible manner, represent what we 
ourselves feel. Words tend all too quickly to become sym- 
bolic ; and it is often the chief importance of what we call 
"genius" that it takes these inflexible symbols into its 



THE COMPLEX VISION 5 

hands and breaks them up into pieces and dips them in the 
wavering waters of experience and sensation. 

Every philosopher should be at pains to avoid as far as 
possible the use of technical terms, whether ancient or 
modern, and should endeavour to evade and slip behind 
these terms. He should endeavour to indicate his vision 
of the world by means of words which have acquired no 
thick accretion of traditional crust but are fresh and sup- 
ple and organic. He should use such words, in fact, as 
might be said to have the flexibility of life, and like living 
plants to possess leaves and sap. He should avoid as far 
as he can such metaphors and images as already carry with 
them the accumulated associations of traditional usage, and 
he should select his expressions so that they shall give the 
reader the definite impact and vivid shock of thoughts that 
leap up from immediate contact with sensation, like fish 
from the surface of a river. 

Just because words, in their passage from generation to 
generation, tend to become so hard and opaque, it is ad- 
visable for any one attempting to philosophize to use in- 
direct as well as direct means of expressing his thoughts. 
The object of philosophizing being to "carry over" into 
another person's consciousness one's personal reaction to 
things, it may well happen that a hint, a gesture, a signal, 
a sign, made indirectly and rather by the grouping of 
words and the tone of words than by their formal content, 
will reach the desired result more effectually than any di- 
rect argument. 

It must be admitted, however, that this purely subjective 
view of philosophy, with its implied demand for a precise 
subjective colouring of the words, leaves some part of our 
philosophical motive-force unsatisfied and troubled by an 
obscure distress. No two minds can interchange ideas 
without some kind of appeal, often so faint and unconscious 
as to be quite unrecognized, to an invisible audience of hid- 



6 THE COMPLEX VISION 

den attendants upon the argument, who are tacitly as- 
sumed in some mysterious way to be the arbiters. These 
invisible companions seem to gather to themselves, as we 
are vaguely aware of them, the attributes of a company 
of overshadowing listeners. They present themselves to ' 
the half -conscious background of our mind as some pre- 
existent vision of " truth" towards which my subjective ! 
vision is one contribution and my interlocutor's subjective ; 
vision another contribution. 

This vague consciousness which we both have, as we ex- } 
change our ideas, of some comprehensive vision of pre- > 
existent reality, to which we are both appealing, does not 
destroy my passionate conviction that I am "nearer the : 
truth" than my friend ; nor does it destroy my latent feel- - 
ing that in my friend's vision there is "something of the - 
truth" which I am unable to grasp. I think the more con- 3 
stantly we encounter other minds in these philosophical I 
disputes the more does there grow and take shape in our 
own mind the idea of some mysterious and invisible watch- 
ers whose purer vision, exquisitely harmonious and clair- 
voyant, remains a sort of test both of our own and of l 
others' subjectivity; becomes, in fact, an objective standard ; 
or measure or pattern of those ideas which we discover 
within us all, and name truth, beauty, nobility. 

This objective standard of the things which are most 
important and precious to us, this ideal pattern of all 
human values, attests and manifests its existence by the 
primordial necessity of the interchange of thoughts among 
us. I call this pattern or standard of ideas "the vision of I 
the immortal companions." By the term "the immortal 
companions" I do not mean to indicate any "immanent" 
power or transcendental "over-soul." Nor do I mean to 
indicate that they are created by our desire that they | 
should exist. Although I call them "companions" I wish 
to suggest that they exist quite independently of man and 



THE COMPLEX VISION 7 

are not the origin of these ideas in man 's soul but only the 
model, the pattern, the supreme realization of these ideas. 

It is, however, to these tacit listeners, whose vision of 
the world is there in the background as the arbiter of our 
subjective encounters, that in our immense loneliness we 
find ourselves constantly turning. All our philosophy, all 
our struggle with life, falls into two aspects as we grow 
more and more aware of what we are doing. The whole 
strange drama takes the form, as we feel our way, of a 
creation which at present is non-existent and of a realiza- 
tion of something which at present is hidden. 

- Thus philosophy, as I have said, is at once a setting-f orth 
and a return; a setting-f orth to something that has never 
been reached, because to reach it we have to create it, and a 
return to something that has been with us from the begin- 
ning and is the very form and shape and image of the 
thing which we have set forth to create. # 

These hidden listeners, these tacit arbiters, these assumed 
and implied witnesses of our life, give value to every at- 
tempt we make at arriving at some unity amid our differ- 
ences ; and their vision seems, as the eternal duality presses 
upon us, to be at once the thing from which we start and 
the thing towards which, moulding the future as we go, we 
find ourselves moving. In the unfathomable depths of the 
past we are aware of a form, a shape, a principle, a pre- 
monition; and into the unfathomable depths of the future 
we project the fulfilled reality of this. We are as gods 
creating something out of nothing. But when we have 
| created it . . . behold! it was there from the beginning; 
j and the nothing out of which we have created it has receded 
j into a second future from which it mocks and menaces us 
! again. 

The full significance of this ultimate duality would be 
.rendered abortive if the future were determined in any 
jmore definite way than by the premonition, the hope, the 



8 THE COMPLEX VISION 

dream, the passion, the prophecy, the vision, of those in- I 
visible companions whose existence is implied whenever \ 
two separate souls communicate their thoughts to one an- 
other. 

It is by our will that the future is created; but around 
the will hover intermittently many unfathomable motives. 
And the pre-existent motive, which finally gives the shape 
to the future, holds the future already in its hand. And 
this surviving motive, ultimately selected by our will, is 
of necessity purged and tested by a continual comparison 
with that form, that idea, that dream, that vision, which 
is implied from the beginning and which I name "the vi- 
sion of the invisible companions. ' ' 

The philosophical enquiry upon which we are engaged 
finds its starting point, then, in nothing less than that 
revelation of the complex vision which is also the goal of 
its journey. The complex vision, in the rhythmic play 
of its united attributes, makes use of a synthetic power 
which I call its apex-thought. 

The supreme activity of this apex-thought is centred 
about those primordial ideas of truth, beauty and nobility 
which are the very stuff and texture of its being. In the 
ecstasy of its creative and receptive "rapport" with these 
it becomes aware of the presence of certain immortal com- 
panions whose vision is at once the objective standard of 
such ideas and the premonition of their fuller realization. 

In thus attempting to articulate and clarify the main 
outlines of our starting point, a curious situation emerges. 
The actual spectacle, or mass of impressions to be dealt 
with, presents itself, we are forced to suppose, as more or 
less identical, in its general appearance, in every human 
consciousness. And this "general situation" is strange 
enough. 

We find ourselves, motionless or moving, surrounded by 
earth and air and space. Impressions flow past us and 



THE COMPLEX VISION 9 

flow through us. We ourselves seem at the same time 
able to move from point to point in this apparently real 
universe and able to remain, as invisible observers, outside 
all the phenomena of time and space. As the ultimate in- 
visible spectator of the whole panorama, or, in the logical 
phrase, as the "a priori unity of apperception" our con- 
sciousness cannot be visualized in any concrete image. 

But as the empirical personal self, able to move about 
within the circle of the objective universe, the soul is able 
to visualize itself pictorially and imaginatively, although 
not rationally or logically. These two revelations of the 
situation are simultaneously disclosed; and although the 
first -named of them — the "a priori unity of appercep- 
tion" — might seem to claim, on the strength of this 
"a priori" a precedence over the second, it has no real 
right to make such a claim. The truth of the situation is 
indeed the reverse of this ; and upon this truth, more than 
upon anything else, our whole method of enquiry depends. 
For the fact that we are unable to think of our integral 
personal self as actually being this "a priori" conscious- 
ness, and are not only able but are bound to think of our 
integral personal self as actually being this individual 
"soul" within time and space, we are driven to the con- 
clusion that this "a priori" observer outside time and 
space is nothing more than an inevitable trick or law or 
aspect or play of our isolated logical reason. 

Our logical reason is itself only one attribute of our real 
concrete self, the self which exists within time and space; 
and therefore we reach the conclusion that this "a priori 
unity," which seems outside time and space, is nothing 
but a necessary inevitable abstraction from the concrete real- 
ity of our personal self which is within time and space. 
There is no need to be startled at the apparent paradox of 
this, as though the lesser were including the larger or the 
part the whole, because when space and time are elimi- 



10 THE COMPLEX VISION 

nated there can be no longer any large or small or whole 
or part. All are equal there because all are equally noth- 
ing there. 

This ' ' a priori ' ' unity of consciousness, outside time and 
space, is only real in so far as it represents the inevitable 
manner in which reason has to work when it works in iso- 
lation, and therefore compared with the reality of the per- 
sonal self, within time and space, it is unreal. 

And it is obvious that an unreal thing cannot be larger 
than a real thing ; nor can an unreal thing be a whole of 
which a real thing is a part. 

The method therefore of philosophic enquiry, which I 
name "the philosophy of the complex vision/' depends 
upon the realization of the difference between what is only 
the inevitable play of reason, working in isolation, and what 
is the inevitable play of all the attributes of the human 
soul when they are held together by the synthetic activity 
of what I name the " apex-thought. " But this logical 
revelation of the "a priori" unity of consciousness outside 
of time and space is not the only result of the isolated play 
of some particular attribute of personality. Just as the 
isolated play of reason evokes this result, so the isolated 
play of self-consciousness evokes yet another result, which 
we have to recognize as intervening between this ultimate 
logical unity and the real personal self. 

The abstraction evoked by the isolated play of self* 
consciousness is obviously nearer reality and less of an 
abstraction than the merely logical one above-named, be- 
cause self-consciousness has more of the personal self in it 
than reason or logic can have. But though nearer reality 
and less of an abstraction than the other, this revelation 
of the inevitable play of self-consciousness, working by 
itself, is also unreal in relation to the revelation of the con- 
crete personal individual soul. 

This revelation of self-consciousness, working in isola- 



THE COMPLEX VISION 11 

tion, has as its result the conception of one universal "I 
am I" or cosmic self, which is nothing more or less than 
the whole universe, contemplating itself as its own object. 
To this conception are we driven, when in isolation from the 
soul's other attributes our self -consciousness gives itself 
up to its own activity. The "I am I " which we then seek 
to articulate is an "I am I" reached by the negation or 
suppression of that primordial act of faith which is the 
work of the imagination. This act of faith, thus negated 
and suppressed in order that this unreal cosmic self may 
embrace the universe, is the act of faith by which we be- 
come aware of the existence of innumerable other ' ' selves, ' ' 
besides our own self, filling the vast spaces of nature. 

The difference between the sensation we have of our own 
body and the sensation we have of the rest of the universe 
ceases to exist when self -consciousness thus expands; and 
the conceptions we arrive at can only be described as the 
idea that the whole universe with all the bodies which it 
contains — including our own body — is nothing but one 
vast manifestation of one vast mind which is our own 
"I am I." 

It must not be supposed that this abstraction evoked by 
the solitary activity of self-consciousness is any more a 
"whole," of which the real self is a "part," than the 
logical "a priori unity" is a whole, of which the real self 
is a part. Both are abstractions. Both are unreal. Both 
are shadowy projections from the true reality, which is 
the personal self existing side by side with "the immortal 
companions. ' ' Nor must it be supposed that these primor- 
dial aspects of life are of equal importance and that we 
have an equal right to make of any one of them the start- 
ing point of our enquiry. The starting point of our en- 
quiry, and the end of our enquiry also, can be nothing else 
than the innumerable company of individual ' ' souls, ' ' mor- 
tal and immortal, confronting the mystery of the universe. 



12 THE COMPLEX VISION 

The philosophy of the complex vision is not a mechan- 
ical philosophy; it is a creative philosophy. And as such 
it includes in it from the beginning a certain element of 
faith and a certain element which I can only describe as 
''the impossible." It may seem ridiculous to some minds f 
that the conception of the "impossible" should be intro- 
duced into any philosophy at the very start. The complex 
vision is, however, essentially creative. The creation of 
something really new in the world is regarded by pure 
reason as impossible. Therefore the element of "the im- I' 
possible" must exist in this philosophy from the very- 
start. The act of faith must also exist in it ; for the imag- 
ination is one of the primary aspects of the complex vision 
and the act of faith is one of the basic activities of the 
imagination. 

The complex vision does not regard history as a pro- 
gressive predetermined process. It regards history as the | 
projection, by advance and retreat, of the creative and 
resistant power of individual souls. That the "invisible 
companions" should be in eternal contact with every living 
"soul" is a rational impossibility; and yet this impossi- 
bility is what the complex vision, using the faith of its 
creative imagination, reveals as the truth. 

The imagination working in isolation is able, like rea- 
son and self-consciousness, to fall into curious distortions 
and aberrations. 

One has only to survey the field of dogmatic religion to 
see how curiously astray it may be led. It is only by hold- 
ing fast to the high rare moments when the apex-thought 
attains its consummation that we are able to keep such 
isolated acts of faith in their place and prevent the element 
of the "impossible" becoming the element of the absurd. 
The philosophy of the complex vision, though far more 
sympathetic to much that is called "materialism" than 
to much that is called "idealism," certainly cannot itself 



THE COMPLEX VISION 13 

be regarded as materialistic. And it cannot be so re- 
garded because its central assumption and implication is 
the concrete basis of personality which we call the "soul." 
And the "soul," when we think of it as something real, 
must~inevitably be associated with what might be called 
"the vanishing point of sensation." In other words the 
soul must be thought of as having some kind of "matter" 
or "energy" or "form" as its ultimate life, and yet as 
having no kind of "matter" or "energy" or "form." 
The soul must be regarded as "something" which is living 
and real and concrete, and which has a definite existence 
in time and space, and which is subject to annihilation; 
but the stuff out of which the soul is made is not capable 
of analysis, and can only be accepted by such an act of 
faith as that which believes in "the impossible." 

The fact that the philosophy of the complex vision as- 
sumes as its only axiom the concrete reality of the "soul" 
within us which is so difficult to touch or handle or de- 
scribe and yet which we feel to be so much more real 
than our physical body, justifies us in making an experi- 
ment which to many minds will seem uncalled for and 
ridiculous. I mean the experiment of trying to visualize, 
by an arbitrary exercise of fancy, the sort of form or 
shape which this formless and shapeless thing may be 
imagined as possessing. 

Metaphysical discussion tends so quickly to become thin 
and abstract and unreal ; words themselves tend so quickly 
to become "dead wood" rather than living branches and 
leaves; that it seems advisable, from the point of view of 
getting nearer reality, to make use sometimes of a pictorial 
image, even though such an image be crudely and clumsily 
drawn. 

Pictorial images are always treacherous and dangerous; 
but, as I have hinted, it is sometimes necessary, considering 
the intricate and delicately balanced character of man's 



14 THE COMPLEX VISION 

complex vision, to make a guarded and cautious use of 
them, so as to arrive at truth "sideways," so to speak, and 
indirectly. 

One of the curious psychological facts, in connection with 
the various ways in which various minds function, is the 
fact that when in these days we seek to visualize, in some 
pictorial manner, our ultimate view of life, the images 
which are called up are geometrical or chemical rather 
than anthropomorphic. It is probable that even the most 
rational and logical among us as soon as he begins to 
philosophize at all is compelled by the necessity of things 
to form in the mind some vague pictorial representation 
answering to his conception of the universe. 

The real inherent nature of such a philosophy would be 
probably understood and appreciated far better, both by 
the philosopher himself and by his friends, if this vague 
pictorial projection could be actually represented, in words 
or in a picture. 

Most minds see the universe of their mental conception 
as something quite different from the actual stellar uni- 
verse upon which we all gaze. Even the most purely ra- 
tional minds who find the universe in "pure thought" are 
driven against their rational will to visualize this "pure 
thought" and to give it body and form and shape and 
movement. 

These hidden and subconscious representations, in terms 
of sensible imagery, of the conclusions of philosophic 
thought, are themselves of profound philosophical inter- 
est. We cannot afford to neglect them. They are at least 
proof of the inalienable part played, in the functioning 
of our complex vision, by sensation as an organ of research. 
But they have a further interest. They are an illuminat- 
ing revelation of the inherent character and personal bias 
of the individual soul who is philosophizing. I suppose 
to a great many minds what we call "the universe" pre- 



THE COMPLEX VISION 15 

sents itself as a colossal circle, without any circumference, 
filled with an innumerable number of material objects 
floating in some thin attenuated ether. I suppose the 
centre of this circle with no circumference is generally 
assumed to be the "self" or "soul" of the person project- 
ing this particular image. 

Doubtless, in some cases, it is assumed to be such a per- 
son's phj'sical body as it feels itself conscious of sensation 
and is aware of space and time. 

As I myself use the expression "complex vision" I sup- 
pose I call up in the minds of my various readers an ex- 
traordinary variety of pictorial images. Without laying 
any undue stress upon this pictorial tendency, I should 
like to indicate the kind of projected image which I my- 
self am conscious of, when I use the expression, "the com- 
plex vision." 

I seem to visualize this thing as a wavering, moving 
mass of flames, taking the shape of what might be called 
a "horizontal pyramid," the apex of which, where the 
flames are fused and lost in one another, is continually 
cleaving the darkness like the point of a fiery arrow, while 
the base of it remains continually invisible by reason of 
some magical power which confuses the senses whenever 
they seek to touch or to hold it. 

Sometimes I seem to see this "base" or "spear handle" 
or "arrow shaft," of my moving horizontal pyramid, as 
a kind of deeper darkness; sometimes as a vibration of 
air; sometimes as a cloud of impenetrable smoke. I am 
always conscious of the curious fact that, while I can 
most vividly see the apex-point of the thing, and while 
I know that this moving pyramid of fire has a base, there 
is for ever some drastic natural law or magical power 
at work that obscures my vision whenever I turn my eyes 
to the place where I know it exists. 

I have not mentioned this particular pictorial image 



16 THE COMPLEX VISION 

with any wish to lay undue stress upon it. In all rarified 
and subtle experiments of thought* pictorial images are 
quite as likely to hinder us in our groping towards reality 
as they are to help us. If my image of a moving, hori- 
zontal pyramid with an apex-point of many flames fused 
into one and a base of impenetrable invisibility seems to 
any reader of this passage a ridiculous and arbitrary fancy 
I would merely ask such an one to let it go, and to con- 
sider my description of the complex vision quite inde- 
pendently of it. 

Sometimes to myself it appears ridiculous; and I only, 
as we put it, "throw it out" in order that, if it has the 
least illuminative value, such a value should not be quite 
lost. Any reader who regards my particular picture as 
absurd is perfectly at liberty to form his own pictorial 
image of what I am endeavouring to make clear. He may, 
if he pleases, visualize "the soul" as a sort of darkened 
planet from which the attributes of the complex vision 
radiate to the right or to the left, as the thing moves 
through immensity. ,A11 I ask is that these attributes 
should be thought of as converging to a point and as find- 
ing their "base" in some thing which is felt to exist but 
cannot be described. 

Probably to a thorough-going empiricist, and certainly 
to a thorough-going materialist, it will appear quite un- 
necessary to translate the obvious spectacle of the world, 
with oneself as a physical body in the centre of it, into 
mental symbols and pictorial representations of the above 
character. Of such an one I would only ask, in what sort 
of manner he visualizes, when he thinks of it at all, the 
"soul" which he feels conscious of in his own body; and in 
the second place how he visualizes the connection between 
the will, the instinct, the reason and so forth, which ani- 
mate his body and endow it with living purpose? It will 
be found much easier for critics to reject the particular 









THE COMPLEX VISION 17 

image which has commended itself to me as suggestive 
of the mystery with which we have to deal, than for them 
to drive out and expel from their own thought the in- 
sidious human tendency towards pictorial representation. 

I would commend to any sardonic psychologist whose 
" malice" leads him to derive pleasure from the little 
weaknesses of philosophers, to turn his attention to the 
ideal systems of supposedly "pure thought. " He will 
find infinite satisfaction for his spleen in the crafty man- 
ner in which " impure" thought — that is to say thought 
by means of pictorial images — passes itself off as "pure" 
and conceals its lapses. 

Truth, as the complex vision clearly enough reveals to 
us, refuses to be dealt with by "pure" thought. To deal 
with truth one has to use "impure" thought, in other 
words thought that is dyed in the grain by taste, instinct, 
intuition, imagination. And every philosopher who at- 
tempts to round off his system by pure reason alone, and 
who refuses to recognize that the only adequate organ of 
research is the complex vision, is a philosopher who sooner 
or later will be caught red-handed in the unphilosophic act 
of covering his tracks. 

No philosopher is on safe ground, no philosopher can 
offer us a massive organic concrete representation of real- 
ity who is shy of all pictorial images. They are danger- 
ous and treacherous things ; but it is better to be led astray 
by them than to avoid them altogether. 

The mythological symbolism of antique thought was full 
of this pictorial tendency and even now the shrewdest of 
modern thinkers are compelled to use images drawn from 
antique mythology. Poetic thought may go astray. But 
it can never negate itself into quite the thin simulacrum of 
reality into which pure reason divorced from poetic imagery 
is capable of fading. 

After all, the most obstinate and irreducible of all pic- 



4 



18 THE COMPLEX VISION 

torial representations is the obvious one of the material 
universe with our physical body as the centre of it. But 
even this is not complete. In fact it is extremely far 
from complete, directly we think closely about it. For not 
only does such a picture omit the real centre, that inde- 
scribable "something" we call the "soul," it also loses it- 
self in unthinkable darkness when it considers any one of 
its own unfathomable horizons. 

It cannot be regarded as a very adequate picture when 
both the centre of it and the circumference of it baffle 
thought. The materialist or "objectivist" may be satis- 
fied with such a result, but it is a result which does not 
answer the question of philosophy, but rather denies that 
any answer is possible. But though this obvious objective 
spectacle of the universe, with our bodily self as a part 
of it, cannot satisfy the demands of the complex vision, it 
is at least certain that no philosophy which does not in- 
clude this and accept this and continually return to this, 
can satisfy these demands. 

The complex vision requires the reality of this objective 
spectacle but it also requires recognition of certain basic 
assumptions, implicit in this spectacle, which the materialist 
refuses to consider. 

And the most comprehensive of these assumptions is 
nothing less than the complex vision itself, with that 
"something," which is the soul, as its inscrutable base. 
Thus I am permitted to retain, in spite of its arbitrary 
fantasy, my pictorial image of a pyramidal arrow of fire, 
moving from darkness to darkness. My picture were false 
to my conception if it did not depict the whole pyramid, 
with the soul itself as its base, moving, in its complete 
totality, from mystery to mystery. 

It may move upwards, downwards, or, as I myself seem 
to see it, horizontally. But as long as it keeps its apex- 
point directed to the mystery in front of it, it matters 



' 



THE COMPLEX VISION 19 

little how we conceive of it as moving. That it should 
move, in some way or another, is the gist of my demand 
upon it ; for, if it does not move, nothing moves ; and life 
itself is swallowed up in nothingness. 

This swallowing up of life in nothingness, this oblitera- 
tion of life by nothingness is what the emotion of malice 
ultimately desires. The eternal conflict between love and 
malice is the eternal contest between life and death. And 
this contest is what the complex vision reveals, as it moves 
from darkness to darkness. 



CHAPTER II 

THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 

The aspects of the complex vision may be separated 
from one another according to many systems of classifica- 
tions. As long as, in the brief summary which follows, 
I include the more obvious and more important of these 
aspects, I shall be doing all that the philosophy of the 
complex vision demands. 

The reader is quite at liberty to make a different classi- 
fication from mine, if mine appears unconvincing to him. 
The general trend of my argument will not be in any se- 
rious way affected, as long as he admits that I have fol- 
lowed the tradition of ordinary human language, in the 
classification which I have preferred. 

It seems to me, then, that the aspects of the complex 
vision are eleven in number; and that they may be sum- 
marized as consisting of reason, self-consciousness, will, 
the aesthetic sense, or "taste,'' imagination, memory, con- 
science, sensation, instinct, intuition and emotion. 
1 These eleven aspects or attributes are not to be regarded 
as absolutely separate "functions," but rather as rela- 
tively separate ' ' energies ' ' of the one concrete soul-monad. 
The complex vision is the vision of an irreducible living 
entity which pours itself as a whole into every one of its 
various energizings. And though it pours itself as a whole 
into each one of these, and though each one of these con- 
tains the latent potentiality of all the rest, the nature of the 
complex vision is such that it necessarily takes colour and 
form from the particular aspect or attribute through which 
at the moment it is especially energizing. 

It is precisely here that the danger of " disproportion' ' 

20 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 21 

is found. For the complex vision with the whole weight 
of all its aspects behind it receives the colour and the form 
of only one of them. We can see the result of this from 
the tenacity — implying the presence of emotion and will — 
with which some philosopher of pure reason passionately 
and imaginatively defends his logical conclusion. 

But we are ourselves proof of it in every moment of 
our lives. Confronted with some definite external situa- 
tion, of a happy or unhappy character, we fling ourselves 
upon this new intrusion with the momentum of our whole 
being ; and it becomes largely a matter of accident whether 
our reaction of the moment is coloured by reason or by will 
or by imagination or by taste. Immersed in the tide of 
experience, receiving shock after shock from alien and 
hostile forces, we struggle with the weight of our whole 
soul against each particular obstacle, not stopping to regu- 
late the complicated machinery of our vision but just 
seizing upon the thing, or trying to avoid it, with what- 
ever energy serves our purpose best at the moment. 

This is especially true of small and occasional pleasures 
or small and occasional annoyances. A supreme pleasure 
or a supreme pain forces us to gather our complex vision 
together, forces us to make use of its apex-thought, so that 
we can embrace the ecstasy or fling ourselves upon the 
misery with a co-ordinated power. It is the little casual 
annoyances and reliefs of our normal days which are so 
hard to deal with in the spirit of philosophic art, because 
these little pleasures and pains while making a superficial 
appeal to the reason or the emotion or the will or the con- 
science, are not drastic or formidable enough to drive us 
into any concentration of the apex-thought which shall 
harmonize our confused energies. 

The fatal ease with which the whole complex vision gets 
itself coloured by and obsessed by one of its own attributes 
may be proved by the history of philosophy itself. Indi- 



22 THE COMPLEX VISION 

victual philosophers have, over and over again, plunged 
with furious tenacity into the mystery of life with a com- 
plex vision distorted, deformed and over-balanced. 

I seem to see the complex vision of such thinkers taking 
some grotesque shape whereby the apex-point of effective 
thought is blunted and broken. The loss and misery, or 
the yet more ignoble comfort, of such suppressions of the 
apex-thought, is however a personal matter. Those "in- 
visible companions, ' ' or immortal children of the universe, 
who are implicitly present as the background of all hu- 
man discussion, grow constantly more definite and articu- 
late the apprehension of the general human mind by rea- 
son of these^personal aberrations. 

It is perhaps rather to the great artists of our race than 
to any philosopher at all that these invisible ones reveal 
themselves, but in their gradual disclosure to the conscious- 
ness of the human race, they are certainly assisted by the 
most insane and unbalanced plunges into mystery, of this 
and the other abnormal individual. The paradox may 
indeed be hazarded that the madder and more abnormal 
are the individual's attempts to dig himself into the very 
nerves and fibres of reality, the clearer and more definite 
as far as consciousness of the race is concerned, does the 
revelation of these invisible ones grow. 

The abnormal individual whose complex vision is dis- 
torted almost out of human recognition by the predom- 
inance of some one attribute, is yet, in his madness and 
morbidity, a wonderful engine of research for the clair- 
voyance of humanity. 

The vision of the immortals, as a background to all fur- 
ther discussion, is rendered richer and more rhythmical 
every day, or rather the hidden rhythm of their being is 
revealed more clearly every day, by the eccentricities and 
maladies, nay! by the insanities and desperations, of in- 
dividual victims of life. 



THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 23 

Thus it comes about that, while the supreme artists, 
whose approximation to the vision of the invisible ones is 
closest, remain our unique masters, the lower crowd of 
moderately sane and moderately well-balanced persons are 
of less value to humanity than those abnormal and way- 
ward ones whose psychic distortions are the world's per- 
verted instruments of research. 

A philosopher of this unbalanced kind is indeed a sort 
of living sacrifice or victim of self -vivisection, out of whose 
demonic discoveries — bizarre and fantastic though they 
may seem to the lower sanity of the mob — the true 
rhythmic vision of the immortals is made clearer and more 
articulate. 

The kind of balance or sanity which such average per- 
sons, as are commonly called "men of the world," possess 
is in reality further removed from true vision than all 
the madness of these debauches of specialized research. 
For the consummation of the complex vision is a meeting 
place of desperate and violent extremes; extremes, not 
watered down nor modified nor even "reconciled," cer- 
tainly not cancelled by one another, but held forcibly and 
deliberately together by an arbitrary act of the apex- 
thought of the human soul. 

As I glance at these basic activities of the complex vi- 
sion one by one, I would beg the reader to sink as far as he 
can into the recesses of his own identity ; so that he may 
discover whether what he finds there agrees in substance 
— call it by what name he pleases and explain it how he 
pleases — with each particular energy I name, as I indicate 
such energies in my own way. 

Consider the attitude of self-consciousness. That man 
is self-conscious is a basic and perhaps a tragic fact that 
surely requires no proof. The power of thinking "I am 
I" is an ultimate endowment of personality, outside of 
which, except by an act of primordial faith, we cannot 



24 THE COMPLEX VISION 

pass. The phenomenon of human growth from infancy 
to maturity proves that it is possible for this self-con- 
sciousness — this power of saying "I am I" — to become 
clearer and more articulate from day to day. It seems as 
impossible to fix upon a definite moment in a child's life 
where we can draw a line and say "there he was uncon- 
scious of himself and here he is conscious of himself" as 
it is impossible to observe as an actual visible movement 
the child's growth in stature. 

Between consciousness and self -consciousness the divid- 
ing line seems to be as difficult to define as it is difficult to 
define the line between sub-consciousness and consciousness. 
My existence as a self-conscious entity capable of think- 
ing "I am I" is the basic assumption of all thought. 
And though it is possible for my thought to turn round 
upon itself and deny my own existence, such thought in 
the process of such a denial cuts the very ground away 
which is the leaping point of any further advance. 

Philosophy by such drastic scepticism is reduced to com- 
plete silence. You cannot build up anything except illu- 
sion from a basis that is itself illusion. If I were not 
self-conscious there would be no centre or substratum or 
coherence or unity in any thought I had. If I were not 
self-conscious I should be unable to think. 

Consider, then, the attribute of reason. That we possess 
reason is also a fact that carries with it its own evidence. 
It is reason which at this very moment — reason of some 
sort, at any rate — I am bound to use, in estimating 
the important place or the unimportant place which rea- 
son itself should occupy. You cannot derogate from the 
value of reason without using reason. You cannot put 
reason into an inferior category, when compared with will 
or instinct or emotion, without using reason itself to prove 
such an inferiority. 

We may come to the conclusion that the universe is 






THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 25 



rather irrational than rational. We may come to the con- 
» elusion that the secret of life transcends and over-brims 
all rationality. But this very conclusion as to the irra- 
tional nature of the mystery with which reason is attempt- 
ing to deal is itself a conclusion of the reason. 

There is only one power which is able to put reason aside 
in its search for truth and that power is reason. 

Consider, then, the attribute of will. That we possess 
a definite and distinct energy whose activity may be con- 
trasted with the rest and may be legitimately named "the 
will" is certainly less self-evident than either of the two 
preceding propositions but is none the less implied in both 
of them. For in the act of articulating to ourself the 
definite thought "I am I" we are using our will. The 
motive-force may be anything. We may for instance will 
an answer to the implied question "what am I/' and our 
self-consciousness may return the answer "I am I," leav- 
ing it to the reason to deal with this answer as best it 
can. The motive may be anything or nothing. Both con- 
sciousness and will are independent of motive. 

For in all these primordial energizings of the complex 
vision everything that happens, happens simultaneously. 
With the consciousness "I am I" there comes simulta- 
neously into existence the consciousness of an external uni- 
verse which is, at one and the same time, included in the 
circle of the "I am I" and outside the circle. That is to 
say when we think the thought "I am I," we feel our- 
selves to be the whole universe thinking "I am I," and yet 
by a primordial contradiction, we feel ourselves to be an 
"I am I" opposed to the universe and contrasted with the 
universe. 

But all this happens simultaneously; and the conscious- 
ness that we are ourselves implies, at one and the same 
time, the consciousness that we are the universe and the 
consciousness that we are inside the universe. 



26 THE COMPLEX VISION 

And precisely as the fact of self-consciousness implies the 
primordial duality and contradiction of being at once the 
whole universe and something inside the universe, so the 
original fact of our thinking at all, implies the activity of 
the will. 

We think because we are "thinking animals' ' and we 
will because we are " willing animals." The presence of 
what we call motive is something that comes and goes in- 
termittently and which may or may not be present from 
the first awakening of consciousness. We may think "I . 
am I" at the very dawn of consciousness under the pres- 
sure of a vague motive of clearing up a confused situa- 
tion. We may use our reason at the very dawn of con- 
sciousness under the pressure of a vague motive of alleviat- 
ing the distress of disorder with the comfort of order. 
But, on the other hand, self-consciousness may play its 
part, reason may play its part and the will may play its 
part in the complete absence of any definite motive. There 
is such a thing — and this is the point I am anxious 
to make — as motiveless will. Certain thinkers have 
sought to eliminate the will altogether by substituting 
for it the direct impact or pressure of some motive or 
motive-force. But if the will can be proved to be a { 
primordial energy of the complex vision and if the con- 
ception of a motiveless exertion of the will is a legitimate 
conception, then, although we must admit the intermittent 
appearance and disappearance of all manner of motives, 
we have no right to substitute motive for will. If we do 
make such a substitution, all we really achieve is simply 
a change of name; and our new motive is the old will 
"writ small." 

Motives undoubtedly may come and go from the begin- 
ning of consciousness and the beginning of will. They 
may flutter like butterflies round both the consciousness 



THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 27 

and the will. For instance it is clear that I am not always 
articulating to myself the notable or troublesome thought 
"I am I." I may be sometimes so lost and absorbed in 
sensation that I quite forget this interesting fact. But it 
may easily happen at such times that I definitely experience 
the sensation of choice; of choice between an intensification 
of self-consciousness and a continued blind enjoyment of 
this external preoccupation. And it is from this sensation 
of choice that we gather weight for our contention that 
the will is a basic attribute of the human soul. 

It is certainly true that we are often able to detach our- 
selves from ourselves and to watch the struggle going on 
between two opposite motive-forces, quite unaware, it might 
seem, and almost indifferent, as to how the contest will 
end. 

But this struggle between opposite motives does not 
obliterate our sensation of choice. It sometimes intensifies 
it to an extreme point of quite painful suspension. The 
opposite motives may be engaged in a struggle. But the 
field of the struggle is what we call the will. And it may 
even sometimes happen that the will intervenes between 
a weaker and stronger motive and, out of arbitrary pride 
and the pleasure of exertion for the sake of exertion, throws 
its weight on the weaker side. 

It is a well-known psychological fact that the complex 
vision can energize, with vigorous spontaneity, through the 
will alone, just as it can energize through sensation alone. 
The will can, so to speak, stretch its muscles and gather 
itself together for attack or defence at a moment when 
there is no particular necessity for its use. 

Some degree of self-consciousness is bound to accompany 
this "motiveless stretching" of the will, for the simple 
reason that it is not "will in the abstract" which makes 
such a movement but the totality of the complex vision, 



28 THE COMPLEX VISION 

though in this case all other attributes of the complex 
vision, including self -consciousness and reason, are held 
in subordination to the will. 

Man is a philosophical animal; and he philosophizes as 
inevitably as he breathes. He is also an animal possessed 
of will ; and he uses his will as inevitably as, in the process 
of breathing, he uses his lungs or his throat. Around him, 
from the beginning, all manner of motives may flutter like 
birds on the wing. They may be completely different mo- 
tives in the case of different personalities. But in all per- 
sonalities there is consciousness, to grasp these motives; 
and in all personalities there is will, to accept or to reject 
these motives. 

The question of the freedom of the will is a question 
which necessarily enters into our discussion. 

The will feels itself — or rather consciousness feels 
the will to be — at once free and limited. The soul does 
not feel it is free to do anything it pleases. That at 
least is certain. For without some limitation, without 
something resistant to exert itself upon, the will could not 
be known. An absolutely free will is unthinkable. The 
very nature of the will implies a struggle with some sort 
of resistance. 

The will is, therefore, by the terms of its original defini- 
tion and by the original feeling which the soul experiences 
in regard to it, limited in its freedom. The problem re- 
solves itself, therefore, if once we grant the existence of the 
will, into the question of how much freedom the will has 
or how far it is limited. Is it, for instance, when we know 
all the conditions of its activity, entirely limited? Is the 
freedom of the will an illusion ? 

It is just at this point that the logical reason makes a 
savage attempt to dominate the situation. The logical 
reason arrives step by step at the inevitable conclusion 
that the will has no freedom at all but is absolutely limited.' 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 29 

On the other hand emotion, instinct, imagination, intui- 
tion, and conscience, all assume that the limitation of the 
will is not absolute but that within certain boundaries, 
which themselves are by no means fixed or permanent, the 
will is free. 

Consciousness itself must be added to this list. For 
whatever arguments may be used in the realm of thought, 
when the moment of choice arrives in the realm of action, 
we are always conscious of the will as free. If the reason 
is justified in regarding the freedom of the will as an illu- 
sion, we are justified in denying the existence of the will 
altogether. For a will with only an illusion of freedom is 
not a will at all. In that case it were better to eliminate 
the will and regard the soul as "a thing which acts and re- 
acts under the stimuli of motives like a helpless automaton 
endowed with consciousness. 

But the wiser course is to experiment with the will and 
let it prove its freedom to the sceptical reason by helping 
that same reason to retire into its proper place and asso- 
ciate itself with the apex-thought of the complex vision. 

Leaving the will then, as a thing limited and yet free, 
let us pass to a consideration of what I call " taste." This 
is the aesthetic sense, an original activity of the human 
soul, associated with that universal tendency in life and 
nature which we name the beautiful. I use the word 
" taste" at this moment in preference to " aesthetic sense," 
because I feel that this particular original activity of the 
complex vision has a wider field than is commonly, sup- 
posed. I regard it, in fact, as including much more than 
the mere sense of beauty. I regard it as a direct organ 
of research, comparable to instinct or intuition, but cover- 
ing a different ground. I regard it as a mysterious clair- 
voyance of the soul, capable of discriminating between cer- 
tain everlasting opposites, which together make up an 
eternal duality in the very depths of existence. 



30 THE COMPLEX VISION 

These opposites imply larger and more complicated is- 
sues than are implied in the words beautiful and ugly. 
The real and the unreal, the interesting and the uninterest- 
ing, the significant and the insignificant, the suggestive 
and the meaningless, the arresting and the commonplace, 
the exciting and the dull, the organic and the affected, the 
dramatic and the undramatic, are only some of the differ- 
ences implied. 

The fact that art is constantly using what we call the 
ugly as well as what we call the commonplace, and turn- 
ing both these into new forms of beauty, is a fact that con- 
siderably complicates the situation. And what art, the 
culminating creative energy of the aesthetic sense, can do, 
the aesthetic sense itself can do with its critical and re- 
ceptive power. 

So that in the aesthetic sense, or in what I call " taste,' ' 
we have an energy which is at once receptive and creative ; 
at once capable of responding to this eternal duality, and 
of creating new forms of beauty and interest out of the 
ugly and uninteresting. A new name is really required 
for this thing. A name is required for it that conveys a 
more creative implication than the word "taste," a word 
which has an irresponsible, arbitrary, and even flippant 
sound; and a more passionate, religious, and ecstatic im- 
plication than the word " aesthetic, ' ' a word which sug- 
gests something calculated, cold, learned, and a little 
tame. I use the word "taste" at this particular moment 
because this word implies a certain challenge to both rea- 
son and conscience, and some such challenge it is necessary 
to insist upon, if this particular energy of the soul is to 
defend its basic integrity. 

This ultimate attribute of personality, then, which I call 
"taste" reveals to us an aspect of the system of things 
quite different from those revealed by the other activities 
of the human soul, This aspect of the universe, or this 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 31 

"open secret" of the universe, loses itself, as all the others 
do, in unfathomable abysses. It descends to the very 
roots of life. It springs from the original reservoirs of 
life. It has depths which no mental logic can sound ; and 
it has horizons in the presence of which the mind stops 
baffled. When we use the term "the beautiful " to indi- 
cate the nature of what it reveals, we are easily misled; 
because in current superficial speech — and unless the 
word is used by a great artist — the term " beautiful' ' 
has a narrow and limited meaning. Dropping the term 
"taste" then, as having served its purpose, and reverting 
to the more academic phrase "aesthetic sense" we must 
note that the unfathomable duality revealed by this 
aesthetic sense covers, as I have hinted, much more ground 
than is covered by the narrow terms "beauty" and "ugli- 
ness." 

It must be understood, moreover, that what is revealed 
by the aesthetic sense is a struggle, a conflict, a war, a 
contradiction, going on in the heart of things. The 
aesthetic sense does not only reveal loveliness and distinc- 
tion; it also reveals the grotesque, the bizarre, the out- 
rageous, the indecent and the diabolic. If we prefer to 
use the term "beauty" in a sense so comprehensive and 
vast as to include both sides of this eternal duality, then 
we shall be driven to regard as "beautiful" the entire 
panorama of life, with its ghastly contrasts, with its 
appalling evil, with its bitter pain, and with its intoler- 
able dreariness. 

The "beautiful" will then become nothing less than the 
whole dramatic vortex regarded from the aesthetic point 
of view. Life with all its contradictions, considered as an 
aesthetic spectacle, will become "beautiful" to us. This 
is undoubtedly one form which the aesthetic sense assumes ; 
the form of justifying existence, in all its horror and loathe- 
someness as well as in all its magical attraction. 



32 THE COMPLEX VISION 

Another form the aesthetic sense may assume is the 
form of "taking sides" in this eternal struggle; of using 
its inspiration to destroy, or to make us forget, the brutal- 
ity of things, by concentrating our attention upon what in 
the narrow sense we call the oeautiful or the distinguished 
or the lovely. But there is yet a third form the aesthetic 
sense may assume. Not only can it visualize the whole 
chaotic struggle between beauty and hideousness as itself 
a beautiful drama ; not only can it so concentrate upon 
beauty that we forget the hideousness; it is also able to 
see the world as a humorous spectacle. 

When the aesthetic sense regards the whole universe as 
" beautiful' ' it must necessarily regard the whole universe 
as tragic; for the pain and dreariness and devilishness in 
the universe is so unspeakable that any "beauty" which 
includes such things must be a tragic beauty. Not to 
recognize this and to attempt to "accept" the universe as 
something which is not tragic, is to outrage and insult the 
aesthetic sense. 

But we may regard the universe as tragic without re- 
garding it as "beautiful" and yet remain under the power 
of the aesthetic energy. For there exists a primordial 
aspect of the aesthetic vision which is not concerned with 
the beautiful at all, or only with the beautiful in so wide 
a latitude as to transcend all ordinary usage, and this is 
our sense of humour. 

The universe as the human soul perceives it, is horribly 
and most tragically humorous. Man is the laughing ani- 
mal; and the "perilous stuff" which tickles his aesthetic 
sense with a revelation of outrageous comedy has its roots 
in the profoundest abyss. This humorous aspect of the 
system of things is just as primordial and intrinsic as what 
we call the "beautiful." The human soul is able to pour 
the whole stream of its complex vision through this fan- 
tastic casement. It knows how to respond to the "dia- 



THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 33 

blerie" of the abysses with a reciprocal gesture. It is 
able to answer irony with irony; and to the appalling 
grotesqueness and indecency of the universe it has the 
power of retorting with an equally shameless leer. 

But this sardonic aspect of human humour, though 
tallying truly enough with one eternal facet of the uni- 
verse, does not exhaust the humorous potentiality of the 
aesthetic sense. There is a "good" irony as well as a 
* 'wicked" irony. Humour can be found in alliance with 
the emotion of love as well as with the emotion of hate. 
Humour can be kind as well as cruel ; and there is no doubt 
that the aesthetic spectacle of the world is as profoundly 
humorous in a quite normal sense as it is beautiful or 
noble or horrible. 

Turning now to that primeval attribute of the complex 
vision which we call emot ion, we certainly enter the pres- 
ence of something whose existence cannot be denied or 
explained away. Directly we grow conscious of ourselves, 
directly we use reason or instinct or the aesthetic sense, 
we are aware of an emotional reaction. This emotional 
reaction may be resolved into a basic duality, the activity 
of love and the activity of the opposite of love. 

I say "the opposite of love" deliberately; because I am 
anxious to indicate, in regard to emotion, how difficult it 
is to find adequate words to cover the actual field of what 
we feel. 

I should like to write even the word "love" with some 
such mark of hesitation. For, just because of the appall- 
ing importance of this ultimate duality, it is essential to 
be on our guard against the use of words which convey 
a narrow, crude, rough-and-ready, and superficial mean- 
ing. By the emotion of "love" I do not mean the amorous 
phenomenon which we call "being in love." Nor do I 
mean the calmer emotion which we call "affection." The 
passion of friendship, when friendship really becomes a 



34 THE COMPLEX VISION 

passion, is nearer my meaning than any of these. And 
yet the emotion of love, conceived as one side of this 
eternal duality, is much more than the "passion of friend- 
ship ' ' ; because it is an emotion that can be felt in the pres- 
ence of things and ideas as well as persons. Perhaps the 
emotion of love as symbolized in the figure of Christ, com- 
bined with the aesthetic and intellectual passion inherited 
from the Greek philosophers, comes nearest to what I have 
in mind ; though even this, without some tangible and con- 
crete embodiment, tends to escape us and evade analysis. 

And if it is hard to define this "love" which is the 
protagonist, so to speak, in the world's emotional drama, 
it is still harder to define its opposite, its antagonist. I 
could name this by the name of "hate," the ordinary an- 
tithesis of love, but if I did so it would have to be with 
a very wide connotation. 

The true opposite to the sort of "love" I have in my 
mind is not so much "hate" as a kind of dull and insen- 
sitive hostility, a kind of brutal malignity and callous 
aversion. Perhaps what we are looking for as the true 
opposite of love may be best defined as malice. 

Malice seems to convey a more impersonal depth and a 
wider reach of activity than the word hate and has also a 
clearer suggestion of deliberate insensitiveness about it. 
The most concentrated and energetic opposite of love is 
not either hate or malice. It is cruelty; which is a thing 
that seems to draw its evil inspiration from the profound- 
est depths of conscious existence. 

But cruelty must necessarily have for its "object" some- 
thing living and sentient. A spiritual feeling, a work of 
art, an idea, a principle, a landscape, a theory, an inani- 
mate group of things, could not be contemplated with an 
emotion of cruelty, though it could certainly be contem- 
plated with an emotion of malice. 

There is often, if not always, a strange admixture of 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 35 

sensuality in cruelty. Cruelty, profoundly evil as it is, 
has a living intensity which makes it less dull, less thick, 
less deliberately insensitive, less coldly hostile, than the 
pure emotion of malice, and therefore less adapted than 
malice to be regarded as the true opposite of love. 

But the best indication of the distinction I want to make 
will be found in the contrast between the conceptions of 
creation and destruction. The dull, thick, insensitive cal- 
lousness which we are conscious of in the opposite of love 
is an indication that while love is essentially creative the 
opposite of love is essentially that which resists creation. 

The opposite of love is not destructive in the sense of 
being an active destructive force. Such an active destruc- 
tive force must necessarily, by reason of the passionate 
energy in it, be a perversion of creative power, not the 
opposite of creative power. 

Creative power, even in its unperverted activity, must 
always be capable of destroying. It must be capable of 
destroying what is in the way of further creation. Thus 
the true opposite of creation is not destruction, but the 
inert, heavy, thick, callous, brutal, insensitive "obscurant- 
ism" or "material opacity" which resists the pressure of 
the creative spirit. 

By this analysis of the ultimate duality of emotion we 
are put in possession of a basic aspect of the complex vi- 
sion, which must largely shape and determine its total 
activity. The soul within us, that mysterious "something" 
which is the living and concrete "person" whose vision 
the complex vision is, is a thing subject at the start to 
this unfathomable duality, the emotion of love and the 
emotion of malice. 

The emotion of love is the life-begetting, life-conceiving 
force, the creator of beauty, the discoverer of truth, and the 
reconciler of eternal contradictions. 

The emotion of malice, with its frozen sneer of sardonic 



36 THE COMPLEX VISION 

denial, raises its "infernal fist" against the centrifugal 
outflowing of the emotion of love. It is impossible to con- 
ceive of self -consciousness without love and hatred; or, 
as I prefer to say, without love and malice. Self -conscious- 
ness implies from the start what we call the universe ; and 
the universe cannot appear upon the scene without excit- 
ing in us the emotion of love and hate. Every man born 
into the world loves and hates directly he is conscious of 
the world. This is the ultimate duality. Attraction and 
repulsion is the material formula for this contradiction. 

If everything in the world were illusion except one Uni- 
versal Being, such a being must necessarily be thought of 
as experiencing the emotion of self-love and of self -hatred. 
A condition of absolute indifference is unthinkable. Such 
indifference could not last a moment without becoming 
either that faint hatred, which we call "boredom," or that 
faint love, which we call "interest." The contemplation 
of the universe with no emotional reaction of any kind is 
an inconceivable thing. An infant at its mother's breast 
displays love and malice. At one and the same moment 
it satisfies its thirst and beats upon the breast that feeds it. 

The primordial process of philosophizing and the primal 
will to philosophize are both of them penetrated through 
and through with this ultimate duality of love and malice. 
Love and malice in alternate impulse are found latent and 
potent in every philosophic effort. Behind every phi- 
losophy, if we have the love or the malice to seek for it, 
may be found the love or malice, or both of them, side 
by side, of the individual philosopher. That pure and 
unemotional desire for truth for its own sake which is the 
privilege of physical science cannot retain its simplicity 
when confronted with the deeper problems of philosophy. 
It cannot do so because the complex vision with which we 
philosophize contains emotion as one of its basic attributes. 

To consider next, the attribute of imagination. Imagi- 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 37 

nation seems, when we analyse it, to resolve itself into the 
half-creative, half-interpretative act by which the complex 
personality seizes upon, plunges into, and moulds to its 
purpose, that deeper unity in any group of things which 
gives such a group its larger and more penetrating signifi- 
cance. 

Imagination differs from intuition in the fact that by its 
creative and interpretative power it dominates, possesses 
and moulds the material it works upon. Intuition is 
entirely receptive and it receives the illumination offered 
to it at one single indrawing, at one breath. Imagination 
may be regarded as a male attribute; intuition as a fem- 
inine one; although in a thousand individual cases the 
situation is actually reversed. 

To realize the primary importance of imagination one 
has only to visualize reason, will, taste, sensation, and so 
forth, energizing in its absence. One becomes aware at 
once that such a limited activity does not cover the field 
of man's complex vision. Something — a power that creates, 
interprets, illumines, gathers up into large and flowing 
outlines — is absent from such an experience. 

Consider, in the next place, that primordial attribute of 
the complex vision which we commonly name conscience. 
We are not concerned here with the world-old discussion 
as to the "origin" of conscience. Conscience, from the 
point of view we are now considering, is just as fundamental 
and axiomatic as will, or intuition, or sensation. 

The philosophy of the complex vision retains, with re- 
gard to what is called " evolution, ' ' a completely sus- 
pended judgment. The process of historic evolution may 
or may not have resulted in the particular differentiation 
of species which we now behold. What we are now assum- 
ing is that, in whatever way the differentiation of actual 
living organisms has come about, every particular living 
organism, including the planetary and stellar bodies, must 



38 THE COMPLEX VISION 

possess in some degree or other the organ of apprehension 
which we call the complex vision. 

Our assumption, in fact, is that every living thing has 
personality; that personality implies the existence of a 
definite soul-monad; that where such a soul-monad exists 
there is a complex vision; and finally that, where there is 
a complex vision, there must be, in some rudimentary or 
embryotic state, the eleven attributes of such a vision, in- 
cluding the attribute which the human race has come to 
call "conscience" and which is, in reality, "the power of 
response' ' to the vision which we have named "immortal." 
When evolutionists retort to us that what we call person- 
ality is only a late and accidental phenomenon in the long 
process of evolution, our answer is that when they seek, 
according to such an assumption, to visualize the universe 
as it was before personality appeared, they really, only in 
a surreptitious and illegitimate manner, project their own 
conscious personality into "the vast backward and abysm 
of time," to be the invisible witness of this pre-personal 
universe. 

Thus when evolutionists assure us that there was once 
a period in the history of the stellar system when noth- 
ing existed but masses of gaseous nebulae, our reply is 
that they have forgotten that invisible and shadowy pro- 
jection of their own personality which is the pre-supposed 
watcher or witness of this "nothing-but-nebulae" state of 
things. 

The doctrine or hypothesis of evolution does not in any 
degree explain the mystery of the universe. All it does 
is to offer us an hypothetical picture — true or false 
— of the manner in which the changes of organic and 
inorganic life succeeded one another in their historic crea- 
tion. Evolutionists have to make their start somewhere, 
just as ' ' personalists ' ' have ; and it is much more difficult 
for them to. show how masses of utterly unconscious "neb- 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 39 

ulae" evoked the mystery of personality than it is for us 
to show how the primordial existence of personality de- 
mands at the very start some sort of material or bodily 
expression, whether of a nebular or of any other kind. 

Evolutionists, forgetting the presence of that invisible 
"watcher" of their evolutionary process which they have 
themselves projected into the remote planetary past, as- 
sume as their axiomatic "data" that soulless unconscious 
chemical elements possess "within them" the miraculous 
power of producing living personalities. All one has to 
do is to pile up thousands upon thousands of years in 
which the miracle takes place. 

But the philosophy of the complex vision would indi- 
cate that no amount of piling up of centuries upon cen- 
turies could possibly produce out of "unconscious matter" 
the perilous and curious "stuff" which we call "conscious- 
ness of life." And we would further reply to the evolu- 
tionists that their initial assumption as to the objective 
existence, suspended in a vacuum, of masses of material 
chemistry is an assumption which has been abstracted and 
isolated from the total volume of those sense-impressions, 
which are the only actual reality we know, and which are 
the impressions made, in human experience, upon some 
living personality. 

This criticism of the evolutionists ' inevitable attack upon 
us enters naturally at this point; because, while the aver- 
age mind is willing enough to grant some sort of vague 
omnipresent "will to evolve" to the primordial "nebula" 
and even prepared to allow it such obscure consciousness 
as is implied in the phrase "life-force" or "elan vital," 
it is startled and shocked to a supreme degree when we 
assert that such "nebula," if it existed, was the outward 
body or form of a living "soul-monad" possessed, even as 
human beings are, of every attribute of the complex vi- 
sion. 



40 THE COMPLEX VISION 

The average mind, in its vague and careless mood, is 
ready to accept our contention that some sort of will or 
reason or consciousness existed at the beginning of things. 
It is only when such a mind comes to realize that what we 
are predicating is actual personality, with all the implica- 
tions of that, that it cries out in protest. The average 
mind can swallow our contention that reason and will 
existed from the beginning because the average mind has 
been penetrated for centuries by vague traditions of an 
"over-soul" or an universal "reason" or "will." It is 
only when in our analysis of the attributes of personality 
we come bolt up against the especially anthropomorphic 
attribute of "conscience" that it staggers and gasps. 

For the original "stellar gas" to be vaguely animated 
by some obscure "elan vital" seemed natural enough; but 
for it to be the "body" of some definite living soul seems 
almost humorous; and for such a living soul to possess 
the attribute of "conscience," or the power of response 
to the vision of immortals, seems not only humorous but 
positively absurd. 

The philosophy of the complex vision, however, in its 
analysis of the eternal elements of personality is not in 
the least afraid of reaching conclusions which appear 
"absurd" to the average intelligence. The philosophy of 1 
the complex vision accepts the element of the "absurd" or 
of the "outrageous" or of the "fantastic" in its primor- I 
dial assumptions; for according to its contention this ele- 
ment of the "apparently impossible" is an essential in- 
gredient in the whole system of things. 

Life, according to this philosophy, is only one aspect of 
personality. Another aspect of personality is the appar- 
ently miraculous creation of "something" out of "noth- 
ing"; for the unfathomable creative power of personality A 
extends beyond and below all the organic phenomena which 
we group vaguely together under the name of "life." 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 41 

Thus when in our analysis of the attributes of the com- 
plex vision we are confronted by the evolutionary question 
as to how such a thing, as the thing we call "conscience," 
got itself lodged in the little cells of the human cranium, 
our answer is that the question stated in this manner does 
not touch the essential problem at all. The essential prob- 
lem from the point of view of the philosophy of the com- 
plex vision is not how "conscience," or why other attribute 
of the soul, got itself lodged in the human skull, or ex- 
pressed, shall we say, through the human skull, but how it 
is that the whole stream of sense-impressions, of which the 
hardness and thickness of the human skull is only one 
impression among many, and the original "star-dust" or 
"star-nebulae" only another impression among many, ever 
got itself unified and synthesized into the form of ' ' impres- 
sion" at all. 

In other words the problem is not how the attributes of 
the soul arose from the chemistry of the brain and the 
nerves; but how the brain and the nerves together with 
the whole stream of material phenomena from the star- 
dust upwards, ever got themselves unified and focussed 
into any sort of intelligibility or system. The average 
human mind which feels a shock of distrust and suspicion 
directly we suggest that the thing we name "conscience," 
defined as the power of response to the ideal vision, is an 
inalienable aspect of what we call "the soul" wherever 
the soul exists, feels no sort of shock or surprise when we 
appeal to its own "conscience," or when it appeals to the 
"conscience" of its child or its dog or even of its cat, or 
when it displays anger with its trees or its flowers for 
their apparent wilfulness and errancy. 

Kant found in the moral sense of humanity his door of 
escape from the fatal relativity of pure reason with its 
confounding antinomies. Huxley found in the moral sense 
of humanity a mysterious, unrelated phenomenon that re- 



42 THE COMPLEX VISION 

fused to fall into line with the rest of the evolutionary 
stream. But when, in one bold act of faith or of imagina- 
tion, we project the content of our own individual soul 
into the circle of every other possible "soul," including 
the "souls" of such phenomenal vortices of matter as 
those from which historic evolution takes its start, this 
impossible gulf or "lacuna" dividing the human scene 
from all previous "scenes" is immediately bridged; and 
the whole stream of material sense-impression flows for- 
ward, in parallel and consonant congruity, with the under- 
lying creative energy of all the complex visions of which 
it is the expression. 

Therefore, there is no need for us, in our consideration 
of the basic attribute of the soul which we call conscience, 
to tease ourselves with the fabulous image of some pre- 
historic "cave-man" supposedly devoid of such a sense. 
To do this is to employ a trick of the isolated reason quite 
alien from our real human imagination. 

Our own personality is so constructed that it is im- 
possible for us to realize with any sort of intelligent sym- 
pathy what the feelings of this conscience-less cave-man 
would be. To contemplate his existence at all we have to 
resort to pure rationalistic speculation. We have to leave 
our actual human experience completely behind. But the 
philosophy of the complex vision is an attempt to interpret 
the mystery of the universe in terms of nothing else than 
actual human experience. So we are not only permitted 
but compelled to put out of court this conscience-less cave- 
man of pure speculation. It is true that we encounter 
certain eccentric human beings who deny that they possess 
this "moral sense"; but one has only to observe them for 
a little while under the pressure of actual life to find out 
how they deceive themselves. 

Experience certainly indicates that every human being, 
however normal and ' ' good, ' ' has somewhere in him a touch 



: 



THE ASPECTS OP THE COMPLEX VISION 43 

of insanity and a vein of anti-social aberration. But no 
human being, however abnormal or however "criminal," 
is born into the world without this invisible monitor we 
call "conscience." 

The curious pathological experience which might be 
called "conscience-killing" is certainly not uncommon. 
But it is an experiment that has never been more than 
approximately successful. In precisely the same way we 
might practise "reason-killing" or "intuition-killing" or 
"taste-killing." One may set out to hunt and try to kill 
any basic attribute of our complex vision; but the proof 
of the truth of our whole argument lies in the fact that 
these murderous campaigns are never completely success- 
ful. The "murdered" attribute refuses to remain quiet 
in its grave. It stretches out an arm from beneath the 
earth. It shakes the dust off and comes to life again. 

When we leave the question as to the existence of con- 
science, and enquire what the precise and particular 
"command" of conscience may be in any individual case, 
we approach the edge of an altogether different problem. 

The particular message or command of conscience is 
bound to differ in a thousand ways in the cases of differ- 
ent personalities. Only in its ultimate essence it cannot 
differ. Because, in its ultimate essence, the conscience of 
every individual is confronted by that eternal duality of 
love and malice which is the universal contradiction at 
the basis of every living soul. 

But short of this there is room for an infinite variety of 
"categorical imperatives." The conscience of one per- 
sonality is able to accept as its "good" the very same 
thing that another personality is compelled to regard as 
its "evil." Indeed it is conceivable that a moment might 
arise in the history of the race when one single solitary 
individual called that thing "good" or that thing "evil" 
which all the rest of the world regarded in the opposite 



44 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sense. Not only so; but it might even happen that the 
genius and persuasiveness of such a person might change 
into its direct opposite the moral valuation of the whole 
of humanity. In many quite ordinary cases there may 
arise a clash between the conventional morality of the 
community and the verdict of an individual conscience. 
In such cases it would be towards what the community 
termed "immoral" that the conscience of the individual 
would point, and from the thing that the community termed 
1 ' moral' ' that it would turn instinctively away. 

A conscience of this kind would suffer the pain of re- 
morse when in its weakness it let itself be swayed by the 
"community-morality" and it would experience the pleas- 
ure of relief when in absolute loneliness it defied the ver- 
dict of society. 

Let us consider now an attribute of man's complex vi- 
sion which must instantaneously be accepted as basic and 
fundamental by every living person. I refer to what we 
call "sensation." The impressions of the outward senses 
may be criticized. They may be corrected, modified, re- 
duced to order, and supplemented by other considerations. 
Conclusions based upon them may be questioned. But 
whatever be done with them, or made by them, they must 
always remain an integral and inveterate aspect of man's 
personality. 

The sensations of pain and pleasure — who can deny 
the primordial and inescapable character of these? Not 
that the pursuit of pleasure or the avoidance of pain can 
be the unbroken motive-force even of the most hedonistic 
among us. Our complex vision frequently flings us pas- 
sionately upon pain. "We often embrace pain in an ecstasy 
of welcome. Nor is this fierce embracing of pain "moti- 
vated" by a deliberate desire to get pleasure out of pain. 
It seems in some strange way due to an attraction towards 
pain for its own sake — towards pain, as though pain were 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 45 

really beautiful and desirable in itself. One element in all 
this is undoubtedly due to the desire of the will to assert 
its freedom and the integrity of its being; in other words 
to the desire of the will towards the irrational, the ca- 
pricious, the destructive, the chaotic. 

It has been only the least imaginative of philosophers 
who have taken for granted that man invariably desires his 
own welfare. Man does not even invariably desire his own 
pleasure. He desires the reactive vibration of power ; and 
very often this "power" is the power to rush blindly upon 
destruction. But, whether dominant or not as a motive 
affecting the will, it remains that our experience of pleasure 
and pain is a basic experience of the complex vision. And 
this experience of sensation is not only a passive experience. 
The attribute of sensation has its active, its energetic, its 
creative side. No one who has suffered extreme pain or 
enjoyed exquisite and thrilling pleasures, can deny the 
curious fact that these things take to themselves a kind of 
independent life within us and become something very like 
"entities" or living separate objects. 

This phenomenon is due to the fact that our whole per- 
sonality incarnates itself in the pain or in the pleasure of 
the moment. Such pain, such pleasure, is the quintessen- 
tial attenuated ' ' matter ' ' with which our soul clothes itself. 
At such moments we are the pain; we are the pleasure. 
Our human identity seems merged, lost, annihilated. Our 
soul seems no longer our soul. It becomes the soul of the 
overpowering sensation. "We ourselves at such moments 
become fiery molecules of pain, burning atoms of pleasure. 
Just as the logical reason can abstract itself from the other 
primal energies and perform strange and fantastic tricks, 
so the activity of sensation can so absorb, obsess and over- 
power the whole personality that the rhythm of existence 
is entirely broken. 

Pain at the point of ecstasy, pleasure at the point of 



46 THE COMPLEX VISION 

ecstasy, are both of them destructive of those rare moments 
when our complex vision resolves itself into music. Such 
music is indeed itself a kind of ecstasy ; but it is an ecstasy 
intellectualized and consciously creative. Pain is present 
there and pleasure is present there ; but they are there only 
as orchestral notes in a larger unity that has absorbed them 
and transmuted them. 

"When a work of art by reason of its sensational appeal 
reduces us to an ecstasy of pleasure or pain it renders im- 
posssible that supreme act of the complex vision by means 
of which the immortal calm of the ideal vision descends 
upon the unfathomable universe. 

Sensation carried to its extreme limit becomes imper- 
sonal; for in its unconscious mechanism personality is de- 
voured. But it does not become impersonal in that magical 
liberating sense in which the impersonal is an escape, bring- 
ing with it a feeling of large, cool, quiet, and unruffled 
space. It becomes impersonal in a thick, gross, opaque, 
mechanical manner. 

There is brutality and outrage; there is bestiality and 
obscenity about both pain and pleasure when in their vora- 
cious maw they devour the magic of the unfathomable 
world. Thus it may be noted that most great and heroic 
souls hold their supreme pain at a distance from them, 
with a proud gesture of contempt, and go down at the last 
with their complex vision unruffled and unimpaired. 
There is indeed a still deeper "final moment " than this; 
but it is so rare as to be out of the reach of average hu- 
manity. I refer to an attitude like that of Jesus upon the 
cross ; in whose mood towards his own suffering there was 
no element of "pride of will," but only an immense pity 
for the terrible sensitiveness of all life, and a supreme 
heightening of the emotion of love towards all life. 

It will be noted that in my analysis of " sensation " I 
have said nothing of what are usually called "the five 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 47 

senses. ' ' These senses are obviously the material ' ' feelers ' ' 
or the gates of material sentiency by which the soul's at- 
tribute of sensation feeds itself from the objective world; 
but they are so penetrated and percolated, through and 
through, by the other basic activities of the soul, that it is 
extremely difficult to disentangle from our impressions of 
sight, of sound, of touch, of taste, and of smell, those inter- 
woven threads of reason, imagination and so forth which 
so profoundly modify and transmute, even in the art of 
seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling, the various 
manifestations of "the objective mystery" which we ap- 
prehend in our sensuous grasp. 

By emphasizing the feelings of pleasure and pain as the 
primary characteristics of the attribute of sensation we are 
indicating the fact that every sensation we experience car- 
ries with it in some perceptible degree or other, the feeling 
of "well-being" or the feeling of distress. 

We now come to consider that dim, obscure, but never- 
theless powerful energy, which the universal tradition of 
language dignifies by the name of "instinct." This "in- 
stinct" is the portion of the activity of the soul which 
works more blindly and less consciously than any other. 

The French philosopher Bergson isolates and emphasizes 
this subterranean activity until it seems to him to hold in 
its grasp a deeper secret of life than any other energy 
which man possessses To secure for instinct this primary 
place in the panorama of life it is necessary to eliminate 
from the situation that silent witness which we call "the 
mind" or self -consciousness ; that witness which from its 
invisible watch-tower looks forth upon the whole spectacle. 
It is necessary to take for granted the long historic stream 
of evolutionary development. It is necessary to regard 
this development in its organic totality as the sole reality 
with which we have to deal. 

The invisible mental witness being eliminated, it becomes 



48 THE COMPLEX VISION 

necessary, if instinct is to be thus made supreme, to regard 
the appearance of the soul as a mere stage in an evolution- 
ary process, the driving-force of which is the power of 
instinct itself. Planets and plants, men and animals, are 
seen in this way to be all dominated by instinct; and in- 
stinct is found to be so much the most important element 
in evolution, that upon it, rather than upon anything else, 
the whole future of the universe may be said to depend. 

Having made this initial plunge into shameless objec- 
tivity, having put completely out of court the invisible wit- 
ness of it all, we find ourselves reduced to regarding this 
"blind" instinct as the galvanic battery which moves the 
world. Thus isolated from the other powers of the soul, 
this mysterious energy, this subterranean driving-force, has 
to bear the whole weight of everything that happens in 
space and time. A strange sort of "blindness" must its 
blindness be, when its devices can supply the place of the 
most passionate intellectual struggles of the mind! 

If it is blind, it gropes its way, in its blindness, through 
the uttermost gulfs of space and into the nethermost 
abysses of life. If it is dumb, its silence is the irresistible 
silence of Fate, the silence of the eternal "Mothers." 

But the "instinct" which is one of the basic attributes of 
the complex vision is not quite such an awe-inspiring thing 
as this. To raise it into such a position as this there has to 
be a vigorous suppression, as I have hinted, of many other 
attributes of the soul. Instinct may be defined as the pres- 
sure of obscure creative desire, drawn from the inscrutable 
recesses of the soul, malleable up to a certain point by rea- 
son and will, but beyond that point remaining unconscious, 
irrational, incalculable, elusive. That it plays an enormous 
part in the process of life cannot be denied ; but the part it 
plays is not so isolated from consciousness as sometimes has 
been imagined. 

There is in truth a strange reciprocity between instinct 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 49 

and self-consciousness, according to which they both play 
into each other's hands. This is above all true of great 
artists' work, which in a superficial sense might be called 
unconscious, but which in a deeper sense is profoundly con- 
scious. It seems as though, in great works of art, a certain 
superficial reasoning is sacrificed to instinct, but in that 
very sacrifice a deeper level of reason is reached between 
which and instinct there is no longer anything but complete 
understanding. 

To intellectualize instinct is one of the profoundest se- 
crets of the art of life ; and it is only when instinct is thus 
intellectualized, or brought into focus with the other as- 
pects of the soul, that it is able to play its proper rhythmic 
part in the musical synthesis of the complex vision. But 
although we cannot allow to instinct the all-absorbing part 
in the world-play which Bergson claims for it, it remains 
that we have to regard it as one of the most mysterious and 
incalculable of the energies of the soul. It is instinct 
which brings all living entities into relation with something 
sub-conscious in their own nature. 

Under the pressure of instinct man recognizes the animal 
in himself, the plant in himself, and even a strange affinity 
with the inorganic and the inanimate. It is instinct in us 
which attracts us so strangely to the earth under our feet. 
It is instinct which attracts certain individual souls to cer- 
tain particular natural elements, such as air, fire, sand, 
mould, rain, wind, water, and the like; a kind of remote 
atavistic reciprocity in us stretching out towards that par- 
ticular element. It is by means of instinct that we are able 
to sink into that mysterious sub-conscious world which un- 
derlies the conscious levels of every soul-monad. Under 
the groping and fumbling guidance of this strange power 
we seem to come into touch with the profoundest reservoirs 
of our personal identity. 

Considering what fantastic and cruel tricks the lonely 



50 THE COMPLEX VISION 

thinking power, the abstract reason, has been allowed to 
play us it is no wonder that this French philosopher has 
been tempted to turn away from reason and find in instinct 
the ultimate solution. Instinct, as we give ourselves up to 
it, seems to carry us into the very nerves and tissues and 
veins and pulses of life. Its verdicts seem to reach us 
with an absolute and unqestionable authority. They seem 
to bear upon them an "imprimatur" more powerful than 
any moral sanction. Potent and terrible, direct and final, 
instinct seems to rise up out of the depths and break every 
law. 

It leaps forth from our inmost being like a second self 
more powerful than we are. It invades religion. It in- 
carnates itself in lust. It obsesses taste. It masquerades 
as intuition. It triumphs over reason. "With an irration- 
ality, that seems at the same time terrible and beautiful, 
instinct moves straight to its goal. It follows its purpose 
with demonic tenacity, heedless of logic, contemptuous of 
consequences. It cares nothing for contradictions. It 
forces contradictions to lose themselves in one another ac- 
cording to some secret law of its own, unknown to the law 
of reason. 

Such, then, is instinct, the sub-conscious fatality of Na- 
ture so difficult to control; whose unrestrained activity is 
capable of completely destroying the rhythm of the com- 
plex vision. Nothing but the power of the apex-thought of 
man's whole concentrated being is able to dominate this 
thing. It may be detected lurking in the droop of the 
Sphinx's eyelids and in the cruel smile upon her mouth. 
But the answer given to the challenge of this subterranean 
force is not, after all, any logical judgment of the pure rea- 
son. It is the answer of the vision of the artist, holding its 
treacherous material under his creative hand. 

Let us turn now to the attribute of "intuition." In- 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 51 

tuition is a thing more clearly definable and more easily 
analysed than almost any other of the aspects of the soul. 
Intuition is the feminine counterpart of imagination ; and, 
as compared with instinct, it is a power which acts in 
clearly defined, isolated, intermittent movements, each one 
of which has a definite beginning and a definite end. As 
compared with imagination, intuition is passive and re- 
ceptive; as compared with instinct it does not fumble and 
grope forward, steadily and tenaciously, among the roots of 
things ; but it suspends itself, mirror-like, upon the surface 
of the unfathomable waters, and suspended there reflects 
in swift sudden glimpses the mysterious movements of the 
great deep. In this process of reflecting, or apprehending 
in sudden, intermittent glimpses, the mysterious depths of 
the life of the soul, intuition is less affected by the reason 
or by the will than any other aspect of the complex vision. 

Instinct, in secret sub-conscious alliance with the will, is 
a permanent automatic energy, working in the hidden dark- 
ness of the roots of things like an ever-flowing subter- 
ranean stream. The revelations of intuition, on the other 
hand, are not flowing and constant, but separate, isolated, 
distinct and detached. In the subject-matter of their rev- 
elations, too, intuition and instinct are very different. If 
the recesses of the soul be compared to a fortified castle, in- 
stinct is the active messenger of the place, continually 
issuing forth on secret errands concerning the real nature 
of which he is himself often quite ignorant. Intuition, on 
the contrary, is the little postern gate at the back of the 
building, set open at rare moments to the wide fields and 
magical forests which extend to the far-off horizon. 

Instinct is always found in close contact with sensation, 
groping its ways through the midst of the mass of mate- 
rial impressions, acting and reacting as it fumbles among 
such impressions. Intuition seems to deal directly and ab- 



52 THE COMPLEX VISION 

solutely with a clear and definite landscape behind the 
superficial landscape, with a truth behind truth, with a 
reality within reality. 

To take an instance from common experience : a stranger, 
an unknown person, enters our circle. Instinct, working 
automatically and sensationally, may attract us powerfully 
towards such a person, with a steady, irresistible attraction. 
Intuition, on the contrary, uttering its revelation abruptly 
and with, so to speak, one sudden mysterious cry, may 
warn us of some dangerous quicksand or perilous jungle in 
such a stranger's nature of which instinct was totally 
ignorant because the thing was what might be called a 
11 spiritual quality" lying deeper than those sensational or 
magnetic levels through which instinct feels its way. 

The instinct of animals or birds for instance warns them 
very quickly with regard to the presence of some natural 
enemy whose approach they apprehend through some mys- 
terious sense — impression beyond the analysis of human 
reason. But when their enemy is the mental intention of 
a human being they are only too easily tricked. 

To take quite a different instance. It may easily hap- 
pen that while conscience has habitually driven us to a 
certain course of action against which instinct has never 
revolted because of its preoccupation with the senses, some 
sudden flash of intuition reaching us from the hidden sub- 
stratum of our being changes our whole perspective and 
gives to conscience itself a completely opposite bias. 
What these intermittent revelations of intuition certainly 
do achieve is the preservation in the soul's memory of the 
clear and deep and free and unfathomable margins of the 
ultimate mystery, those wavering sea-edges and twilight- 
shores of our being, which the austere categories of rational 
logic tend to shut out as if by impenetrable walls. 

It remains to consider the attribute of memory. Mem- 
ory is the name which we give to that intrinsic suscepti- 






THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 53 

bility, implying an intrinsic permanence or endurance in 
the material which displays susceptibility, such as makes it 
possible for what the soul feels or what the soul creates to 
write down its own record, so that it can be read at will, 
or if not "at will," at least can be read, if the proper 
stimulus or shock be applied. 

Memory is not the cause of the soul's concrete identity. 
The soul 's concrete identity is the cause or natural ground 
of memory. Memory is the "passive-active" power by 
means of which the concrete identity of the soul grows 
richer, fuller, more articulate, more complex and more 
subtle. 

In looking back over these eleven attributes of the "soul- 
monad," what we have to remark is, that two of the num- 
ber differ radically in their nature from the rest. The at- 
tribute of emotion differs from the rest in the sense that 
it is the living substantial unity or ultimate synthesis in 
which they all move. It is indeed more than this. For it 
is the actual "stuff" or "material" out of which they are 
all, so to speak, "made" or upon which they all, so to 
speak, inscribe their diverse creations. 

The permanent "surface," or identical susceptibility, of 
this ebbing and flowing stream of emotion is memory; but 
the emotion itself, divided into the positive and negative 
"pole," as we say of love and malice, is an actual pro- 
jection upon the objective universe of the intrinsic "stuff" 
or psycho-material "substance" of which the substratum of 
the soul is actually composed. The other aspects of the 
soul are, so to speak, the various "tongues" of diversely 
coloured flame with which the soul pierces the "objective 
mystery ' ' ; but the substance of all these flames is one and 
the same. It is the soul itself, projected upon the plane of 
material impression ; and thus projected, becoming the con- 
flicting duality to which I give the name of ' ' emotion. ' ' 

The attribute of "will," also, differs radically from the 



54 THE COMPLEX VISION 

rest; in the sense that "will" is the power which the soul 
possesses of encouraging or suppressing, re-vivifying or 
letting fade, all the other attributes of the soul, including 
that attribute which is the substance and synthesis of them 
all and which I name " emotion. " 

In regard to " emotion" the will can do three separate 
things. It can encourage the emotion of love and suppress 
that of malice. It can encourage the emotion of malice 
and suppress that of love. And finally it can use its en- 
ergy in the effort, an effort which can never be totally suc- 
cessful, to suppress all emotion, of any kind at all. 

Man's complex vision then consists, in simple terms, of 
self-consciousness, reason, taste, imagination, conscience, 
instinct, sensation, intuition, will, memory, and emotion. 
These various activities, differentiated clearly enough in 
their separate energizing, must never be regarded as ab- 
solutely separate "faculties," but rather as relatively sep- 
arated "aspects." Behind all of them and under all of 
them is the complex vision itself, felt by all of us in rare 
moments in its creative totality, but constantly being dis- 
torted and obscured as one or other of its primal energies 
invades the appropriate territory of some other. 

The complex vision must not be regarded as the mere 
sum or accumulated agglomeration of all these. It is much 
more than this. It is more than a mere formal focussing 
of its own attributes. It is more than a mere logical unity 
suspended in a vacuum. 

The complex vision is the vision of a living self, of an 
organic personality, of an actual soul-monad. It may be 
the vision of a man. It may be the vision of a plant or a 
planet or a god. It may be the vision of entities un- 
dreamed of and of existences inconceivable. It may be the 
vision, for example, of some strange "soul of space" or 
"soul of the ether" whose consciousness is extended 



THE ASPECTS OF THE COMPLEX VISION 55 

throughout the visible universe and even throughout the 
"etherial medium" which binds all souls together. 

But whether the vision of a plant, a man, or a god, the 
complex vision seems to bring with it its own immediate 
revelation that where there is any form of "matter," how- 
ever attenuated, such "matter" is the outward expression 
of some inward living soul whose energies have some mys- 
terious correspondence to the eleven aspects of the soul 
of man. 



CHAPTER III 

THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 

It now becomes necessary to discuss the connection be- 
tween what I have named the soul's "apex-thought" and 
certain permanent aspects of life with which this " apex- 
thought" has to deal. 

The "apex-thought" is the name I give to that synthetic 
and concentrating effort of the soul by means of which the 
various energies of the complex vision are brought into 
focus and fused with one another. In accordance with my 
favourite metaphorical image, the " apex- thought " is the 
extreme point of the arrow-head of the soul ; the point with 
which it pierces its ways into eternity. 

It is necessary that I should indicate the connection be- 
tween the activity of this apex-point of the complex vision 
and the various perplexing human problems round which 
our controversies smoulder and burn. It is advisable that 
I should indicate the connection between the activity of 
this " apex-thought" and that thing which the world has 
agreed to call Religion. 

It is advisable that I should indicate the relation of the 
"apex-thought" to those recurrent moods of profound 
human scepticism wherein we deny the attainability of any 
"truth" at all. 

It is advisable that I should indicate the relation of the 
apex-thought to any possible "new organ of vision" with 
which some unforeseen experiment of the soul may suddenly 
endow us. And it is above all advisable that I should 
show the relation between this focussed synthesis of the 

56 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 57 

soul's complexity and the actual physical body whose mate- 
rial senses are part of this complexity. 

The whole problem of the art of life may be said to lie 
in the question of co-ordination. The actual process of co- 
ordination is the supreme and eternal difficulty. Only at 
rare moments do, we individually approximate to its 
achievement. Only once or twice, it may be, in a whole 
life-time, do we actually achieve it. But it is by the power 
and insight of such fortunate moments that we attain 
whatever measure of permanent illumination adds dignity 
and courage to our days. 

We live by the memory of such moments. We live by 
the hope of their return. In the meanwhile our luck or 
our ill luck, as living human beings, depends on no out- 
ward events or circumstances but on our success in the 
conscious effort of approximation to what, when it does 
arrive, seems to take the grace and ease and inevitable 
beauty of a free gift of the gods. 

This fortunate rhythm of the primordial energies of the 
complex vision may be felt and realized without being ex- 
pressed in words. The curse of what we call ' ' cleverness ' ' 
is that it hastens to find facile and fluent expression for 
what cannot be easily and fluently expressed. Education 
is too frequently a mere affair of words, a superficial en- 
couragement of superficial expression. It is for this reason 
that many totally uneducated persons achieve, unknown to 
all except their most intimate friends, a far closer ap- 
proach to this difficult co-ordination than others who are 
not only well-educated but are regarded by the world as 
famous leaders of modern thought. 

It will be remarked that in my list of the primordial 
energies of the complex vision I do not mention religion. 
This is not because I do not recognize the passionate and 
formidable role played by religion in the history of the 
human race, nor because I regard the " religious instinct" 



58 THE COMPLEX VISION 

as a thing outgrown and done with. I have not included 
it because I cannot regard it as a distinct and separate at- 
tribute, in the sense in which reason, conscience, intuition 
and so forth, are distinct and separate attributes, of the 
complex vision. 

I regard it as a name given in common usage to certain 
premature and disproportioned efforts at co-ordination 
among these attributes, and I am well content to apply the 
word "religion" to that sacred ecstasy, at once passionate 
and calm, at once personal and impersonal, which suffuses 
our being with an unutterable happiness when the energies 
of the complex vision are brought into focus. I regard the 
word religion as a word that has drawn and attracted to 
itself, in its descent down the stream of time, so rich and 
so intricate a cargo of human feelings that it has come 
to mean too many things to be any longer of specific value 
m a philosophical analysis. 

Any sort of reaction against the primeval fear with 
which man contemplates the unknown, is religion. The 
passionate craving of human beings for a love which 
changes not nor passes away, is religion. 

The desperate longing to find an idea, a principle, a i, 
truth, a ' ' cause, ' ' for the sake of which we can sacrifice our 
personal pleasure and our personal selfishness, is religion. 

The craving for some unity, some synthesis, some uni- [ 
versal meaning in the system of things, is religion. The 
desire for an ' ' over-life "oran" over- world, ' ' in which the 
distress, disorder, misunderstandings and cruelties of our 
present existence are redeemed, is religion. 

The desire to find something real and eternal behind the 
transient flow of appearance, is religion. The desire to 
force upon others by violence, by trickery, by fire, by 
sword, by persecution, by magic, by persuasion, by elo- 
quence, by martyrdom, an idea which is more important to j 
us than life itself, is religion. 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 59 

It will be seen from this brief survey of the immense 
field which the word "religion" has come to cover, that I 
am justified in regarding it rather as a name given to the 
emotional thrill and ecstatic abandonment which accom- 
panies any sort of co-ordination of the attributes of the 
complex vision, proportioned or disproportioned, than as 
a distinct and separate attribute in itself. 

Only when the co-ordination of our human activities 
rises to the height of a supreme music, can we regard "re- 
ligion" as the most beautiful and most important of all 
human experiences. And at the moment when it takes 
this form it resolves itself into nothing more than an un- 
utterable feeling of ecstasy produced by the sense that we 
are in harmony with the rest of the universe. Religion, as 
I am compelled to think of it, resolves itself into that re- 
action of unspeakable happiness produced in us, when by 
any kind of synthetic movement, however crude, we are 
either saved from unreality or reconciled to reality. 

Religion is, in fact, the name we give to the ecstasy in 
the heart of the complex vision, when, in any sort of co- 
ordination between our contradictory energies, we at once 
escape from ourselves and realize ourselves. We are for- 
bidden to speak of the "religious sense" or the "religious 
instinct" because, truly interpreted, religion is not a single 
activity among other activities, but the emotional reaction 
upon our whole nature when that nature is functioning in 
its creative fulness. 

Religion must therefore be regarded as the culminating 
ecstasy of the art of life, or as a premature snatching at 
such an ecstasy while the art of life is still discordant and 
inchoate. In the first instance it is the supreme reward 
of the creative act. In the second instance it is a tragic 
temptation to rest by the way in a unity which is an illusive 
unity and in a heaven from which "the sun of the morn- 
ing" is excluded. It thus comes about that what we call 



60 THE COMPLEX VISION 

religion is frequently a hindrance to the rhythm of the 
apex-thought. It may be a sentimental consolation. It 
may be an excuse for cruelty and obscurantism. There is 
always a danger when it is thus prematurely manifested, 
that it should darken, distort, deprave and obstruct the 
movement of creation. 

At this point, an objection arises to our whole method 
of research which it is necessary to meet at once. This 
objection, a peculiarly modern one, is based upon the the- 
ory, handed about in modern literature as a kind of di- 
ploma of cleverness and repeated superficially by many 
who are not really sceptical at all, that it is impossible in 
this world to arrive, under any circumstances, at any kind 
of truth. 

Persons who repeat this sceptical dogma are simply re- 
fusing to acknowledge the evidence of their own experience. 
However rare our high rhythmic moments may be, some 
sort of approximation to them, quite sufficient to destroy 
the validity of this absolute scepticism, must, if a person 
honestly confesses the truth, and does not dissimulate out 
of intellectual pride, have entered into the experience of 
every human being. 

Let us, however, consider the kind of dogmatic language 
which these sceptics use. They speak of "life" as a thing 
which so perpetually changes, expands, diminishes, un- 
dulates, advances, recedes, evolves, revolves, explodes, pre- 
cipitates, lightens, darkens, thins, thickens, hardens, soft- 
ens, over-brims, concentrates, grows shallow, grows deep, 
that it were ridiculous even to attempt to create an equi- 
librium, or rhythmic " parting-of -the-ways, ' ' out of such 
evasive and treacherous material. 

My answer to this sceptical protest is a simple one. It is 
an appeal to human experience. I maintain that this mod- 
ern tendency to talk dogmatically and vaguely about "the 
evasive fluidity of life" is nothing more than a crafty 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 61 

pathological retreat from the formidable challenge of life. 
It is indeed a kind of mental drug or spiritual opiate by the 
use of which many unheroic souls hide themselves from the 
sardonic stare of the eternal Sphinx. It is a weakness 
comparable to the weakness of many premature religious 
syntheses ; and it has the same soothing and disintegrating 
effect upon the creative energy of the mind. 

What, as a matter of fact, hurts us all, much more than 
any tendency of life to be over-fluid and over-evasive, is 
the atrocious tendency of life to be inflexible, rigorous, im- 
placable, harshly immobile. This vague dogmatic senti- 
ment about "the fluidity of life, ' ' is one of the instinctive 
ways by which we try to pretend that our prison-walls are 
not walls at all, but only friendly and flowing vapour. 
None of the great works of art and poetry, the austere 
beauty of which reflects the real nature of the universe, 
could continue to exercise their magical power upon us, 
could continue to sustain us and comfort us, if those tragic 
ultimate realities were not ultimate realities. 

The sublime ritual of art, which at its noblest has the 
character of religion, could not exist for a moment in a 
world as softly fluctuating and as dimly wavering as this 
modern scepticism would make it. Life is at once more 
beautiful and far more tragic. Though surrounded by 
mystery the grand outlines of the world remain austerely 
and sternly the same. The sun rises and sets. The moon 
draws the tides. Man goes forth to his work and his 
labour until the evening. Man is born; man loves and 
hates; man dies. And over him the same unfathomable 
spaces yawn. And under him the same unfathomable 
spaces yawn. Time, with its seasons, passes him in un- 
alterable procession. From birth to death his soul wrestles 
with the universe ; and the drama of which he is the pro- 
tagonist lifts the sublime monotony of its scenery from the 
zenith to the nadir. 



62 THE COMPLEX VISION 

Let any man ask himself what it is that hurts him most 
in life and yet seems most real to him. He will be com- 
pelled to answer . . . "the atrocious regularity of things 
and their obscene necessity." The very persons who talk 
so glibly about the "fluidity" and "evasiveness" of life 
are persons in whose own flesh the wedge-like granite of 
fate has lodged itself with crushing finality. Life has in- 
deed been too rigid and too stark for them; and in place 
of seizing it in an embrace as formidable as its own, they 
go aside muttering, "life is evasive; life is fluid; life brims 
over. ' ' 

This sceptical dogma of "evasiveness" is generally 
found in alliance with some vague modern "religion" 
whose chief object is to strip the world of the dignity of 
its real tragedy and endow it with the indignity of some 
pretended assurance. This is the role of that superficial 
optimism so inherently repugnant to the aesthetic sense. 

Such apologists for a shallow and ignoble idealism are 
in the habit of declaring that "the tendency of modern 
thought" is to render "materialism" unthinkable; but 
when these people speak of materialism they are thinking 
of the austere limits of that vast objective spectacle into 
which we are all born. This spectacle is indeed mysteri- 
ous. It is indeed staggering and awful. But it is irre- 
vocably there. And no vague talk about the "evasiveness" 
and "over-brimmingness" of life can alter one jot or tittle 
of its eternal outlines. 

From the sublime terror of this extraordinary drama 
such persons are anxious to escape, because the iron of it 
has entered into their souls. They do not see that the 
only "escape" offered by the reality of things is a change 
of attitude towards this spectacle, not an assertion that the 
form of this spectacle is unfixed and wavering. No psy- 
chological or mathematical speculation has the power to 
alter the essential outlines of this spectacle. 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 63 

If such speculations could alter it, then the aesthetic 
sense of humanity would be driven to transform itself; 
and a new aesthetic sense, adapted to this new " evasive- 
ness of life," would have to take its place. Attempts are 
indeed being made at this very hour to " start fresh" with 
a new aesthetic sense and only the winnowing process of 
time and the pressure of personal experience can refute 
such attempts. Meanwhile all we can do is to note the 
rejection of such attempts by the verdict of the complex 
vision ; a rejection which indicates that if such attempts are 
to be successful they must imply the substitution of a new 
complex vision for the one which humanity has used since 
the beginning. 

In other words they must imply a radical change in the 
basic attributes of human nature. Humanity, to justify 
them, must become some sort of super-humanity; and a 
new world inhabited by a new race must take the place of 
the world we know. Such an attempt to substitute a new 
humanity for the old is already conscious of itself in those 
curious experiments of psychical research which are based 
upon the hypothesis that some completely new organs of 
sense are on the point of being discovered. Philosophers 
who believe in the inherent unchangeableness of our pres- 
ent instrument of research — the complex vision as it now 
exists — can only look on at these experiments with an atti- 
tude of critical detachment; and wait until time and ex- 
perience have justified or refuted them. 

Philosophers who believe in the unchangeableness of the 
complex vision are bound to recognize that the human will, 
which is a basic attribute of this vision, must in any case 
play a considerable part in the creation of the future. But 
from their point of view the will is, after all, only one of 
these basic attributes. There is also the aesthetic sense. 
And the aesthetic sense is totally averse to this new kind 
of humanity and this new kind of world. The eternal 



64 THE COMPLEX VISION 

vision of those invisible "sons of the universe/ ' the proof 
of whose existence is a deduction from the encounters of 
all actual souls with one another, would seem to be entirely 
irreconcilable with any new complex vision whose nature 
had been completely changed. 

The visible spectacle of the world with its implied 
"eternal arbiters" would be transmuted and transfigured 
by such an upheaval. For as long as the human will, as 
we know it now, remains in association with the aesthetic 
sense as we know it now, the creation of the future — 
however yielding and indetermined — must depend upon 
the form, the shape, the principle, the prophecy, the 
premonition, existing from the beginning in the nature of 
things. And it is precisely this shape, this form, this prin- 
ciple, this hope, this dream, this essential motive of those 
sons of the universe whose existence is implied "when two 
and three are gathered together," which would be de- 
stroyed and annihilated, if the complex vision were trans- 
formed into something else and a new world took the place 
of the old. 

It is the existence of these real "immortals" confront- 
ing this real universe which makes possible the feeling we 
have that in spite of all our differences, some accumulated 
stream of beauty, truth and goodness, does actually carry 
the past forward into the future, does actually create the 
future according to a premonition and a hope which have 
been there from the beginning. 

This is the supreme act of faith of the complex vision. 
This is the supreme act of faith which saves us at once 
from our subjective isolation and from the will towards 
the acceptance of a premature "religion." This is what 
saves us from any psychological or mathematical or logical 
speculation, which would contradict this hope or destroy 
the reality of the universe from which this hope emerges. 

When we come to a general consideration of the various 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 65 

attributes of the complex vision we are struck at once by 
the appalling power they each have, when not held in 
check, of cancelling one another's contribution. It is for 
this reason that my newly-coined word was unavoidable if 
we are to emphasize the synthetic energy of the complex 
vision when it exercises its control over these diverse at- 
tributes and resists their constant tendency to cancel one 
another. It was precisely to emphasize this synthetic en- 
ergy of the soul that I have made use of the arbitrary 
expression "apex-thought." For if we think of these vari- 
ous attributes as shooting forth like flames from the arrow- 
head of the individual soul, we must think of this co- 
ordinating energy as the power which continually draws 
these flames together when they deviate from their focussed 
intensity, and continually restores, from its inharmonious 
dispersion, the concentration of their arrows' point. If we 
are permitted to use this image of a horizontal pyramid of 
flames it will be seen how important a part is played by this 
apex-thought in concentrating the energies of the complex 
vision so that it can "drive" or "burn" or "pierce" its 
way into the surrounding mystery. 

For this image of an arrow-head of focussed flame which 
is in constant danger of being dispersed as the flames re- 
cede from one another and are blown backwards is only a 
symbolic way of indicating how difficult it is to pierce 
with our complicated instrument of research the vast mys- 
tery which surrounds us. 

All this is mere pictorial metaphor; but in visualizing 
the human soul as a moving arrow-head, composed of flick- 
ering flames that only now and then combine into a sharp 
point, while at other times the wind drives them apart and 
bends them back, I am suggesting that the ultimate reality 
of things is a state of confused movement continually be- 
coming a state of concentrated movement. I am suggest- 
ing that the secrets of life only yield themselves up to a 



66 THE COMPLEX VISION 

movement of desperation. I am suggesting that the spirit 
of creation is also the spirit of destruction, and that the 
real object of the energy of creation is to pierce with its 
burning light the darkness of the objective mystery. 

As proof of the necessity of keeping this apex-thought 
in constant poise, let me reiterate one or two of the philo- 
sophical disasters which result from a cessation of its 
rhythmic function. When the reason, for instance, usurps 
the whole field and acts in isolation from the imagination 
and the intuition, it tends to persuade us to deny the very 
existence of that deepest and most vivid reality of all, the 
handle of our spear-head, the base of our pyramid, the 
mysterious entity within us, which we have come, follow- 
ing the traditions of the centuries, to name the "soul." 
And not only does the soul disappear when the reason thus 
isolates itself, but another primary revelation of the com- 
plex vision, I mean that half-created, half -discovered object 
of the senses popularly called ' ' matter, ' ' disappears with it. 

Man's self -consciousness is thus left suspended "in 
vacuo" with no concrete reality within it and no concrete 
reality outside it; and " thought-in-the-abstract " becomes 
the only truth. 

But not only can reason thus set itself up in isolated 
usurpation against such other activities as imagination, in- 
tuition, will or taste; it can also divide itself against itself 
and emerge in completely contradictory functions. In the 
form of mathematical logic, for instance, it can dispose most 
drastically of that living organic world which in the form 
of experimental science it assumes to be the only truth. 
Again it may happen that reason will arbitrarily ally itself 
with one or the other of the other attributes and on the 
strength of such an alliance seek to obliterate all the rest. 
Thus while it is impossible to avoid the admission that of 
all these basic attributes reason is the most important, be- 
cause without it all the rest would be inarticulate and 



THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 67 

dumb, it remains true that to hold reason in balanced rela- 
tion to all the rest and to hold its own contradictory ten- 
dencies in balanced relation to one another is an undertak- 
ing of such extraordinary difficulty that if it were not for 
the complex vision's possession of that co-ordinating power 
which I have named its apex-thought, one might well par- 
don the mood of those persons who use reason to drug rea- 
son and who steer their boat into some unruffled back- 
water of dogma or mysticism. 

The necessity of such an infinitely delicate poise or bal- 
ance or rhythm in these high matters, the necessity of 
keeping all these conflicting attributes at this exquisite 
point of suspense between abysses of contradiction, is a 
necessity which compels us to recognize that philosophy is 
nothing more or less than the supreme art, and the most 
difficult of all arts. 

Certainly, it seems as though thought has to become in a 
profound sense rhythmical, has to take to itself the nature 
of music, before it can become the truth. For the truth 
does not seem to be a mere picture of the system of things, 
reflected in the mirror of the mind. The truth seems to be 
the very system of things itself, become conscious and 
volitional, changing, growing, living, destroying, creating. 
Thus it comes about that the thought which plunges into 
the universe must of necessity, even in that very act, re- 
mould and re-fashion the universe. Thus Nature per- 
petually recreates herself by the passion of her children 
and is forever re-born as the child of her own offspring. 

But if the supreme difficulty of the art of life lies in the 
maintenance of this rhythm between these primary at- 
tributes, it must never be forgotten that these "attributes" 
are, after all, only aspects of the soul. The soul & each of 
them, not in each of them. They are not "faculties" 
through which the soul acts. They are never absolutely 
distinct from one another. There is something of each of 



68 THE COMPLEX YISION 

them in every one of them, and every attempt which they 
make to establish themselves in an independent existence 
is only an attempt of the soul itself to live a perverted and 
a discordant, instead of a natural and a harmonious life. 

The rarity and difficulty of that high art which brings all 
these orchestral players into harmony is sufficient cause to 
account for the scarcity of genuine philosophical thought in 
this confused world. The human soul, looking desperately 
round for some calm yet passionate light to save its hours 
from ruinous waste, turns away in bitter disillusion from 
the thin dust and the swollen vapour that are offered it. 

Out of the logical laboratories of the abstract reason this 
thin dust is offered; and out of the ideal factories of the 
wish for superficial comfort this iridescent vapour is 
poured forth. That burning secret of life, that lovely and 
terrible reality for which the soul pines is not to be found 
in any mere outward fact or in any mere subjective in- 
tuition. 

Such a fact may crumble to pieces and give place to an- 
other. Such an intuition may melt into air under the 
shock of experience. The craving of the soul is not satisr 
fied by the discovery that " matter' ' resolves itself into 
"energy," nor is the misery of the heart assuaged by the 
theory that time is an attribute of fourth-dimensional 
space. The lamentable beating of blood-stained hands 
upon the ultimate walls does not cease when we learn that 
two straight lines can or cannot meet in infinity ; nor does 
the knowledge that history is an "ideal evolution" heal 
the aching of the world-sorrow. 

Could we know for certain that the dead were raised 
up, even that knowledge would not reduce to silence the 
bitter cry of the outraged generations. So poisonous and 
so deep is the pain of life that no kind of knowledge, not 
even the knowledge that annihilation must at last, sooner 
or later, end it all, can really heal it. 






THE SOUL'S APEX-THOUGHT 69 

But truth is not knowledge. Truth is not the recogni- 
tion of an external fact. Truth is a creative gesture. It is 
a ritual, a rhythmic poise, a balance deliberately sustained 
between eternal contradictions. It is the magical touch 
which reduces to harmony the quivering vibrations of 
many opposites. It is the dramatic movement of a su- 
preme actor at the climax of an unfathomable drama. It 
is music resting upon itself; music so exquisite as to seem 
like silence, music so passionate as to have become calm. 

The apex-thought of that pyramid of conflicting flames 
which we call the complex vision holds itself together at 
one concentrated point. And this point is the arrow point 
of our human soul; that soul which is shot across im- 
mensity in the eternal war between life and the opposite 
of life. 

Although for the purpose of emphasizing and elucidating 
the essential nature of this apex-thought it has been found 
advisable to use such metaphorical and pictorial images as 
the one just indicated, it must be remembered that what 
we are actually and in direct experience confronted with is 
the mystery of a real human personality inhabiting a real 
human body. 

This real personal soul inhabiting a real objective body 
and surrounded on all sides by a real unfathomable uni- 
verse, is the original revelation of the complex vision from 
which there is no escape except by death. 

The philosophy of the complex vision finds its starting 
point in an acceptance of this situation which is nothing 
more than an acceptance of the complex vision's own har- 
monious activity. An acceptance of the reality of the hu- 
man body is an essential part of this .harmonious activity 
because among the aspects of the complex vision are to be 
found certain attributes, such as sensation, instinct and im- 
agination, which would be negated and rendered abortive 
if the human body were an illusion. 



70 THE COMPLEX VISION 

If the "starting point" of our philosophy demands rec- 
ognition of the reality of the body, the " ideal" of our 
philosophy must have a place for the body also. Flesh and 
blood must therefore play their part in the resultant har- 
mony at which we are all the while aiming; and no con- 
tempt for the body, no hatred of the body, no refusal to 
recognize the supreme beauty and sacredness of the body, 
can be alllowed to distort or pervert our vision. 

The activity of the apex-thought, though we have a right 
to use any metaphorical image we please about it in order 
to elucidate its nature, must always be considered as using 
the bodily senses in its resultant rhythm. It must always be 
considered as using that portion of the objective universe 
which we name the body as an inevitable "note" in its 
musical flight from darkness to darkness. It must always 
be conceived as following the attraction of an eternal vi- 
sion, in which "the idea of the body" is an imperishable 
element. 

This "eternal vision," which it is the rhythmic motive 
of the apex-thought to seek, carries with it the witness and 
"imprimatur" of the gods; and although no man has ever 
"beheld" the gods, and although the gods by reason of 
their omnipresent activity, cannot be thought of as being 
"incarnated," yet since they are living souls, even as we 
are, and since every living soul has, as the substratum of 
its identity, what might be called a ' ' spiritual body, ' ' there 
is nothing in the revelation made to us through the activity 
of our complex vision to forbid our free and even fanciful 
speculation as to its use, by the very highest of super- 
human personalities, even, let us say, by the Christ him- 
self, of this mysterious energy of the soul which I have 
named the "apex-thought." 



CHAPTER IV 

THE REVELATION OF THE COMPLEX VISION 

Using then, as our instrument of research, that totality 
of attributes by which the soul in its rare moments of 
rhythmic consummation visualizes the world, the question 
arises — what, in plain untechnical terms, is the revelation 
made to us by this complex medium? Here, as before, I 
am anxious, before I venture upon such a hazardous under- 
taking as an answer to this question, to indicate clearly 
that what I am attempting to state is a revelation which 
is common to the experience of all souls, wherever such a 
thing as the soul exists. The question as to whether or not 
such an universal revelation is an illusion does not concern 
us. To call any universal experience "an illusion" is no 
more and no less illuminating than to call it "an ultimate 
truth. " It is the only reality we are at present in posses- 
sion of; and we must accept it, or remain in complete 
scepticism ; which is only another name for complete chaos. 

The first important discovery which the complex vision 
makes is the fact that the revelation, thus half-offered to it 
and half-created by it, is presented simultaneously in all its 
various aspects. It does not appear to us bit by bit or in 
succession but "en masse" and in its complete "ensem- 
ble. " It is of course unavoidable that its aspects should be 
enumerated one by one and that in such an enumeration 
one aspect should be placed first and another last. Never- 
theless, this "first" and "last" must not be regarded as of 
any reasonable importance; but as nothing more than an 
accident of arbitrary choice. All the aspects of this orig- 
inal revelation are linked together. All are dependent 

71 



> 






72 THE COMPLEX VISION 

upon one another. Among them there is no " first" and 
"last." All are equally real. All are equally necessary. 
All are equally inescapable. 

The activity of the complex vision, then, makes us aware 
that we have within us an integral irreducible self, the liv- 
ing personal substratum of our self-consciousness, the "I" 
of our primordial "I am I." This living personal self is 
the background of our complex vision. It is the personal 
"visionary" whose vision we are using. I say we have 
"within us" such a self. This "within us" is one of the 
inescapable original revelations. For though our con- 
sciousness will be found in its full circle to invade obscure 
shores and wavering margins, there must always be a re- 
turn, however far it may wander, to this definite "some- 
thing" within us which utters the happy or unhappy "I 
am I." 

It is precisely here, in regard to the nature of this "I 
am I," that it is essential to let the totality of our complex 
vision speak, and not one or other of its attributes. No- 
where has the fantastic and desolating power of pure ab- 
stract reason left to itself done more to distort the general 
situation than in this matter. It has distorted it in two 
opposing ways. 

It has distorted it metaphysically by completely eliminat- 
ing this revelation of a personal self, "within us," and it 
has distorted it scientifically by reducing this personal self 
to an automatic mechanical phenomenon produced by the 
action and interaction of unconscious chemical ' ' forces. ' ' 

To the logic of metaphysical reason there is no concrete 
living self which can say ' ' I am I ' ' from that definite point 
in space and time which we indicate by the use of the 
phrase "within us." According to such logic our "I am 
I" becomes "an infinity of consciousness" with no local 
habitation. It becomes a consciousness which includes both 
the "within" and the "without," a consciousness in which 



THE REVELATION 73 

our actual personal self is nothing but an illusory phe- 
nomenon, a consciousness which is outside both time and 
space, a consciousness whose centre is everywhere and its 
circumference nowhere, a consciousness which is pure dis- 
embodied "thought," thought without any " thinker/ ' 
thought contemplating itself as thought, thought in an ab- 
solutely empty void. 

When to this ultimate "unity of apperception, ' ' sus- 
pended in a vacuum, consciousness of self is added ; when 
this ' ' consciousness-in-the-abstract ' ' is regarded as an uni- 
versal self -consciousness, the resultant "I am I" of such 
an omnipresent being becomes an infinite "I am I" which 
is nothing less than the unfathomable universe conscious of 
itself in its totality. Whether consciousness of self be 
added to this "consciousness-in-the-abstract" or not, it is 
hard to see how out of this unruffled ocean of identity the 
actual multifarious world which we feel around us, this 
world of plants and planets and birds and fishes and mortal 
men and immortal gods, ever succeeded in getting itself 
produced at all. 

The vague metaphysical phrases about the One issuing 
forth into the Many, in order to make Itself more com- 
pletely Itself than it was before, seem to us, when under 
the influence of our complex vision, no other than the mean- 
ingless playing with cosmic tennis balls of some insane uni- 
versal Juggler. 

The second way in which reason, left to itself, has dis- 
torted what the complex vision reveals to us about the "I 
am I, " is the scientific or evolutionary way. According to 
this view which assumes that the objective process of evolu- 
tion is our only knowable reality, the individual personal 
"I am I" finds itself resolved into a fatal automatic phe- 
nomenon of cause and effect; a phenomenon which has as 
its "cause" nothing but the prehistoric chemical move- 
ments of "matter" or "energy." The personal self thus 



74 THE COMPLEX VISION 

considered becomes a momentary vortex in a perpetually 
changing stream of " states of consciousness" or " ripples 
of sensation ' ' to each of which vast anterior tides of atavis- 
tic forces have contributed their mechanical quota. 

The chemical fatality of our nerve-tissues, the psycho- 
logical fatality of our motive-impulses, leave no space, 
when they Have all been summed up, for any free arbitrary 
action of an independent self. 

And so, just as according to the metaphysical view, the 
soul disappears in a blur of ideal fatality, according to the 
scientific view the soul disappears in a nexus of mechanical 
determinism. As against both these errors, to the complex 
vision this "soul" within us appears to be something alto- 
gether different from the physical body. The experience 
we have of it, the feeling we have of it, is that it is a def- 
inite "something" dwelling "within" the physical body. 

This revelation with regard to it is as unmistakable as 
it is difficult to analyze. That it is here, within us, we feel 
and know; but as soon as we attempt to subject it to any 
exact scrutiny it seems to melt away under our hands. 
The situation is indeed a kind of philosophical tragic- 
comedy; and is only too indicative of the baffling whimsi- 
cality of the whole system of things. Contradiction and 
paradox at the very basis of life mock our attempt to utter 
one intelligible word about the thing which is the most real 
of all things to us. 

We are vividly aware of this mysterious personality 
within us, "the guest and companion of the body," but 
directly we attempt to lay hold upon the actual substance 
of it it seems to vanish into thin air. But at least our com- 
plex vision, which is its complex vision, reveals to us the 
fact of its existence ; and with its existence once acknowl- 
edged, however impossible analysis of it may be, we are 
able to give a plain and unequivocal denial to all the im- 
personal conclusions reached by metaphysic and science. 



THE REVELATION 75 

This categorical pronouncement of the complex vision 
with regard to the "I am I," namely that it is the voice of 
a living concrete soul within us, is supported historically 
by an immense weight of human tradition. Belief in the 
reality of the soul is older and more tenacious than any 
other human doctrine which our race has ever held. The 
use of the term "soul" is no more than a bare recognition 
that behind the consciousness which says "I am I" there 
is a living entity whose consciousness this is. 

With this bare recognition the revelation of the complex 
vision abruptly stops. It stops with that peculiar and dis- 
concerting suddenness with which it seems to be its nature 
to stop, whenever it reaches the limit of its scope in any 
direction. It stops here, with regard to the soul, just as it 
stops when confronted with the conception of limitlessness, 
both with regard to space and with regard to time. But 
the soul at least is ours; a fact that cannot be explained 
away. 

And although we have no right to go a step beyond the 
bare recognition of its existence and although all words 
regarding it are misleading if used in any other than a 
symbolic sense, we must remember that since the complex 
vision is conscious of itself as a unity, whatever this ' ' some- 
thing " may be which is the centre and core of our liv- 
ing personality, it must at least be a definite irreducible 
"monad/' "something" that cannot be resolved into any- 
thing else, or accounted for by anything else, or explained 
in terms of anything else, or "caused" by anything else; 
"something" that may, perhaps, at last be annihilated; 
but that while it lives must remain the vividest reality we 
know. 

Insanity and disease may obstruct and cloud the soul. 
Outward circumstances may drive the soul back upon itself, 
But while it lives it lives in its totality and when it per* 
ishes, if it be its destiny to perish, it perishes in its totality. 



76 THE COMPLEX VISION 

While the soul lives we may sink into it and have no fear ; 
and yet all the while we have no right to say anything 
about it except that it exists. Truly it is a tragic com- 
mentary upon the drama that we call our life, that we 
should find our ultimate "rest" and "peace" in so bare, so 
stark, so austere, so irrational a revelation as this ! 

But surrounded as we are by the menace of eternal noth- 
ingness it is at least something to have at the background 
of our life a living power of this kind, a power which can 
endure unafraid the very breaking point of disaster, a 
power which can contemplate the possibility of annihilation 
itself with equanimity and unperturbed calm. 

It will be noted that I have been compelled to use once 
and again the term "eternal nothingness." This is indeed 
an inevitable aspect of what the soul visualizes as possible. 
For since the soul is the creator and discoverer of all life, 
when once the soul has ceased to exist, non-existence takes 
the place of existence, and nothingness takes the place of 
life. 

Speculatively we have the right, although the complex 
vision is silent on that tremendous question, to dally with 
the idea of the survival of the soul after the death of the 
body. But this must for ever be an open question, not to 
be answered either negatively or affirmatively, not to be 
answered by the intelligence of any living man. All we 
can say is that it seems as if the death of the body de- 
stroyed the complex vision; and if the complex vision is 
destroyed it seems as though non-existence were bound to 
take the place of existence, and as though nothingness were 
bound to take the place of everything. The oriental con- 
ception of "Nirvana" is no more than a soothing opiate 
administered to a soul that has grown weary of its complex 
vision and weary of its irreducible personality. To im- 
agine oneself freed from the burden of personal conscious- 
ness, and yet in some mysterious way conscious of being 



THE REVELATION 77 

freed from consciousness, is a delicious and delicate dream 
of life-exhausted souls. 

As a speculation it has a curious attraction ; as a reality 
it has nothing that is intelligible. But though the tragedy 
of life to all sensitive spirits is outrageous and obscene, at 
least we may say that the worst conceivable possibility is 
not likely to occur. The worst conceivable possibility 
would be to be doomed to an immortal personal life with- 
out losing the restrictions and limitations of our present 
personal life. If the soul survives the body it must do so 
on the strength of its possession of some transforming en- 
ergy which shall enable it to supply the place in its or- 
ganic being which is at present occupied by the attribute 
of sensation. It is quite obvious that if the life of the soul 
depends upon the active functioning of all its attributes; 
and if one of its attributes, namely sensation, is entirely de- 
pendent for its active functioning upon the life of the 
body ; the life of the soul itself must also depend upon the 
life of the body, unless, as I have hinted, it can transmute 
its attribute of sensation into some other attribute suitable 
to some unknown plane of spiritual existence. 

There are indeed certain ecstatic moments when the soul 
feels as if such a power of liberation from the bodily senses 
were actually within its grasp; but it will inevitably be 
found, when the great rhythmic concentration of the apex- 
thought is brought to bear upon such a feeling as this, that 
it either melts completely away, or is relegated to unim- 
portance and insignificance. Such a feeling, ecstatic and 
intense though it may have been, has been nothing more 
than a disproportioned activity of the attribute of intu- 
ition ; intuition misled in favour of the immortality of the 
soul, even as the pure reason is often misled in the direc- 
tion of the denial of the soul's existence. 

The revelation of the complex vision has no word to say, 
on either side, with regard to whether the soul does or does 



78 THE COMPLEX VISION 

not survive the death, of the body; but it has a very dis- 
tinct word to say as to the importance of this whole ques- 
tion; and what it says in regard to this is — that it is not 
important at all ! The revelation of the complex vision im- 
plies clearly enough that what man were wise to * ' assume ' ' 
— leaving always the ultimate question as an open ques- 
tion — is that the individual soul and the individual body 
perish together. 

This assumption is in direct harmony with what we 
actually see; even though it is in frequent collision with 
what we sometimes feel. But the essence of the matter is 
to be found in this, that our assumption as to the soul's 
perishing, when the body perishes, is an assumption, un- 
true though it may turn out to be, which the soul itself, 
when under the power of its apex-thought, is compelled to 
make. And it is compelled to make this assumption by 
reason of the inherent nature of love. For it is of the 
nature of love when confronted by two alternatives one 
of which lays the stress upon personal advantage and 
the other upon love itself apart from any personal ad- 
vantage, whether one's own or another's, to choose, as 
the assumption upon which it shall live, the latter 
of these two alternatives. For it is the nature of love 
to seek love and nothing else than love. And as long as the 
assumption which the soul makes is the assumption that it 
survives the death of the body, that emotion of love which 
is the soul's creative essence is debarred from the full and 
complete integrity of its desire. 

For the desire of love is not for immortality but for the 
eternal ; and the eternal is not something that depends upon 
the survival of any individual soul, whether our own or 
another's. The eternal is something which can be realized 
in one single moment ; something which completely destroys 
in us any desire for survival after death ; something which 
reconciles us to existence considered in the light of love 



THE REVELATION 79 

alone; something that does not assume anything at all 
about the universe, except that love exists. 

Thus we return to that assumption about the soul, which 
it is better — leaving the open question still an open ques- 
tion — for the mind to accept as its working assumption; 
namely that the soul uses the body in its own ends, is con- 
scious of its existence through the senses of the body, lives 
in the body, and perishes when the body perishes. Nor is it 
only the emotion of love which rejects the dogma of the 
immortality of the soul. Were the soul proved beyond all 
possibility of doubt to be immortal, there would at once fall 
upon us a despair more appalling than any which we have 
known. For just as the idea of the eternal satisfies the 
very depths of our soul with an infinite peace, so the idea 
of immortality troubles the very depths of our soul with 
an infinite doubt. Something unutterable in our aesthetic 
sense demands that life should be surrounded by death and 
ended by death. Thus and not otherwise should we our- 
selves have created the world at the beginning. Thus and 
not otherwise by the rhythmic play of the complex vision, 
do we create the world. 

But meanwhile, whatever happens, as long as we live we 
possess the reality of the soul. This is, and always has 
been, the rallying-ground of heroic and sensitive person- 
alities, struggling with the demons of circumstance and 
chance. This is that unconquerable "mind-within-them- 
selves" into which the great Stoics of Antiquity withdrew 
at their will, and were " happy," beyond the reach of hope 
and fear. This is the citadel from the security of which 
all the martyrs for human liberty have mocked their tor- 
mentors. This is the fortress from which the supreme 
artists of the world have looked forth and moulded the 
outrage of life's dilemma into monumental forms of im- 
aginative beauty. This is the sanctuary from which all 
human personalities, however weak and helpless, have been 



80 THE COMPLEX VISION 

permitted to endure the cruelty and pitilessness of fate. 

After all, it does not so greatly matter that we are un- 
able to do more than know that this thing, this indescrib- 
able " something," really exists. Perhaps it is because its 
existence is more real than anything else that we are unable 
to define it. Perhaps we can only define those attributes 
which are the outward aspects of our real being. Perhaps 
it is simply because the soul is nothing less than our very 
self, that our analytical power stops, helpless, in its pres- 
ence. We are what it is; and for this very cause it per- 
petually evades and escapes us. 

The reality of the soul, therefore, is the first revelation 
of the complex vision. The second revelation is the ob- 
jective reality of the outward visible universe. Left to it- 
self, in its isolated activity, our logical reason is capable 
of throwing doubt upon this revelation also. For it is 
logically certain that what we are actually conscious of is 
no more than a unified stream of various mental impres- 
sions, reaching us through our senses, and never inter- 
rupted except in moments of unconscious sleep. 

It is therefore quite easy for the logical reason, function- 
ing in its isolation from the other attributes, to maintain 
that this stream of mental impressions is all that there is, 
and that we have no right to call the universe real and 
objective, except in the ambiguous sense of a sort of perma- 
nent illusion. But as soon as the complex vision, in its 
totality, contemplates the situation, the thing takes on a 
very different aspect. The pure reason may be as sceptical 
as it pleases about the static solidity of what is popularly 
called " matter." It may use the term energy, or move- 
ment, or ether, or force, or electricity, or any other name 
to describe that permanent sensation of outward reality 
which our complex vision reveals. 

But one thing it has no right to do. It has no right to 
utter the word "illusion" with regard to this objective 



THE REVELATION 81 

universe. The apparent solidity of matter may be ration- 
ally resolved into energy or movement, just as the apparent 
objectivity of matter may be rationally resolved into a 
stream of mental impression. But the complex vision still 
persists in asserting that this permanent sensation of out- 
ward reality, which, except in dreamless sleep, is never 
normally interrupted, represents and bears witness to the 
real existence, outside ourselves, of " something" which cor- 
responds to such a sensation. It is just at this point that 
the soul — helped by instinct, imagination, and intuition — 
makes its great inevitable plunge into the act of primordial 
faith. 

This act of primordial faith is the active belief of the 
soul not only in an objective universe outside itself, but 
also in the objective existence of other individual souls. 
Without this primordial act of faith the individual soul 
can never escape from itself. For the pure reason not only 
reduces the whole universe to an idea in the mind; but it 
also reduces all other minds to ideas in our mind. In other 
words the logical reason imprisons us fatally and hope- 
lessly in a sort of cosmic nut-shell of our own mentality. 

And there would, actually, be no escape from this appal- 
ling imprisonment, according to which the individual soul 
becomes a solitary circle, the centre and circumference of 
all possible existence, if it were not that the soul possesses 
other organs of research, in addition to reason and self- 
consciousness. Directly we temper reason with these other 
activities the whole situation has a different look. It is 
a thing of small consequence what word we use to describe 
that external cause of the flowing stream of mental impres- 
sions. The important point is that we are compelled to 
assume, as representing a real outward fact, this perma- 
nent sense of objectivity from which there is no escape. 

And as the existence of the objective universe is estab- 
lished by a primordial act of faith, so it is also established 



82 THE COMPLEX VISION 

that these alien bodily personalities, whose outward appear- 
ance stands and falls with the objective universe, possess 
1 ' souls, ' ' or what we have come to name ' ' complex visions, ' ' 
comparable with our own. And this is the case not only 
with regard to other human beings, but with regard to all 
living entities whether human or non-human. As to how 
the " souls" of plants, birds, and animals, or of planets or 
stars, differ, in their nature from human souls we can only 
vaguely conjecture. But to refuse some degree of con- 
sciousness, some measure of the complex vision, to any liv- 
ing thing, is to be false to that primordial act of faith into 
which the original revelation of the complex vision com- 
pels us to plunge. 

The inevitableness of this act of faith may be perhaps 
more vividly realized when we remember that it includes 
in its revelation the objective reality of our own physical 
body. Our evidence for the real outward existence of our 
own body is no surer and no more secure than our evidence 
for the outward existence of other " bodies.' \ 

They stand or fall together. If the universe is an illu- 
sion then our own physical body is an illusion also. 

And precisely as the " stuff" out of which the universe 
is made may be named "energy" or "ether" or "force" 
or " electricity, " rather than "matter," so also the "stuff" 
out of which the body is made may be named by any sci- 
entific term we please. The term used is of no importance 
as long as the thing represented by it is accepted as a 
permanent reality. 

We are now able to advance a step further in regard to 
the revelation of the complex vision. Granting, as we are 
compelled to grant, that the other "souls" in the universe 
possess, each of them, its own "vision" of this same uni- 
verse; and assuming that each "vision" is so coloured by 
the individuality of the "visionary" as to be, in a measure, 
different from all the rest, it becomes obvious that in a very 



THE REVELATION 83 

important sense there is not only one universe, but many 
universes. These many universes, however, are "caused," 
or evoked, or created, or discovered, by the encounter of 
various individual souls with that one "objective mystery" 
which confronts them all. 

What a naive confession it is of the limitation of the 
human mind that we should be driven, after all our strug- 
gles to articulate the secret of life, to accept, as our final 
estimate of such a secret just the mysterious "something" 
which is the substratum of our own soul, confronted by 
that other mysterious "something" which is the substratum 
of all possible universes! With the complex vision's rev- 
elation that the objective universe really exists comes the 
parallel revelation that time and space really exist. Here, 
for the third time, are we faced with critical protests from 
the isolated activity of the logical reason. 

Metaphysic reduces both time and space to categories of 
the mind. Mathematical speculation hints at the existence 
of some mysterious fourth-dimensional space. Bergsonian 
dialectic regards ordinary "spatial" time as an inferior 
category; and finds the real movement of life in a species 
of time called "duration," which can only be detected by 
the interior feeling of intuition. 

But while we listen with interest to all these curious 
speculations, the fact remains that for the general vision 
of the combined energies of the soul the world in which 
we find ourselves is a world entirely dependent upon what 
must be recognized as a permanent sensation of "ordi- 
nary" space and "ordinary" time. And as we have 
shown in the case of the objective existence of what we call 
Nature, when any mental impression reaches the level of 
becoming a permanent sensation of all living souls it ceases 
to be possible to speak of it as an illusion. 

It is well that we should become clearly conscious of this 
"reality-destroying" tendency of the logical reason, so 



84 THE COMPLEX VISION 

that whenever it obsesses us we can undermine its limited 
vision by an appeal to the complex vision. Shrewdly must 
we be on our guard against this double-edged trick of logic, 
which on the one hand seeks to destroy the basis of its own 
activity, by disintegrating the unity of the soul, and on the 
other hand seeks to destroy the material of its own activity 
by disintegrating the unity of the "objective mystery." 

The original revelation of the complex vision not only 
puts us on our guard against this disintegrating tendency 
of the pure reason, but it also explains the motive-force 
behind this tendency. This motive-force is the emotion of 
malice, which naturally and inevitably seeks to hand us over 
to the menace of nothingness ; in the first place of nothing- 
ness " within" us, and in the second place of nothingness 
"without" us. That the logic of the pure reason quickly 
becomes the slave of the emotion of malice may be proved 
by both introspection and observation. For we note, both 
in ourselves and others, a peculiar glow of malicious satis- 
faction when such logic strikes its deadliest blows at what it 
would persuade us to regard as the illusion of life. 

Life, just because its deepest secret is not law, deter- 
mined by fate, but personality struggling against fate, is 
always found to display a certain irrationality. And the 
complex vision becomes false to itself as soon as it loses 
touch with this world-deep irrationality. 

We have now therefore reached the conception of reality 
as consisting of the individual soul confronted by the ob- 
jective mystery. That this objective mystery would be 
practically the same as nothing, if there were no soul to ap- 
prehend it, must be admitted. But it would not be really 
the same as nothing; since as soon as any kind of soul 
reappeared upon the scene the inevitable material of the 
objective mystery would at once re-appear with it. The 
existence of the objective mystery as a permanent possibil- 
ity of material for universe-building is a fact which sur- 



THE REVELATION 85 

rounds every individual soul with a margin of unfathom- 
able depth. 

At its great illuminated moments the complex vision re- 
duces the limitlessness of space to a realizable sensation 
of liberty, and the "flo wanness" of time to an eternal 
now; but even at these moments it is conscious of an un- 
fathomable back-ground, one aspect of which is the im- 
mensity of space and the other the flowingness of time. 

The revelation of the complex vision which I have thus 
attempted to indicate will be found identical with the nat- 
ural conclusions of man in all the ages of his history. The 
primeval savage, the ancient Greek, the mediaeval saint, the 
eighteenth century philosopher, the modern psychologist, 
are all brought together here and are all compelled to con- 
fess the same situation. 

That we are now living personalities, possessed of soul 
and body, and surrounded by an unfathomable universe, 
is a revelation about which all ages and all generations 
agree, whenever the complex vision is allowed its orchestral 
harmony. The primeval savage looking up at the sky 
above him might regard the sun and moon as living gods 
exercising their influence upon a fixed unmoving earth. 
In this view of the sun and the moon and the stars such a 
savage was perfectly within his right, because always along 
with it even to the most anthropomorphic, there came the 
vague sense of unfathomableness. 

The natural Necessity of the ancient Greeks, the trini- 
tarian God of the mediaeval school-man, the great First 
Cause of the eighteenth-century deist, the primordial Life- 
Force of the modern man of science, are all on common 
ground here in regard to the unfathomableness of the ulti- 
mate mystery. 

But the revelation of the complex vision saves us from 
the logical boredom of the word " infinite. " The idea of 
the infinite is merely a tedious mathematical formula, 



86 THE COMPLEX VISION 

marking the psychological point where the mind finds its 
stopping-place. All that the complex vision can say 
about ''infinite space " is that it is a real experience, 
and that we can neither imagine space with an end nor 
without an end. 

The ' ' Infinite ' ' is the name which logic gives to this psy- 
chological phenomenon. The fact that the mind stops 
abruptly and breaks into irreconcilable contradictions when 
it is confronted with unfathomable space is simply a proof 
that space without an end is as unimaginable as space with 
an end. It is no proof that space is merely a subjective 
category of the human mind. One thing, however, it is 
a proof of. It is a proof that the universe can never be 
satisfactorily explained on any materialistic hypothesis. 

The fact that we all of us, at every hour of our common 
day, are surrounded by this unthinkable thing, space with- 
out end, is an eternal reminder that the forms, shapes and 
events of habitual occurrence, which we are inclined to 
take so easily for granted, are part of a staggering and 
inscrutable enigma. 

The reality of this thing, actually there, above our heads 
and under our feet, lodges itself, like an ice cold wedge 
of annihilating scepticism, right in the heart of any facile 
explanation. "We cannot interpret the world in terms of 
what we call "matter" when what we call "matter" has 
these unthinkable horizons. We may take into our hands 
a pebble or a shell or a grain of sand; and we may feel 
as though the universe were within our grasp. But when 
we remember that this little piece of the earth is part of a 
continuous unity which recedes in every direction, world 
without end, we are driven to admit that the universe is 
so little within our grasp that we have to regard it as 
something which breaks and baffles the mind as soon as 
the mind tries to take hold of it at all. 

The reason does not advance one inch in explaining the 



THE REVELATION 87 

universe when it utters the word " evolution' ' and it does 
not advance one thousandth part of an inch — indeed it 
gives up the task altogether — when it informs us that 
infinite space is a category of the human mind. We must 
regard it, then, as part of the original revelation of the 
complex vision, that we are separate personal souls sur- 
rounded by an unfathomable mystery whose margins re- 
cede into unthinkable remoteness. 

The ancient dilemma of the One and the Many obtrudes 
itself at this point; and we are compelled to ask how the 
plurality of these separate souls can be reconciled with the 
unity of which they form a part. That they cannot be 
regarded as absolutely separate is clear from the fact that 
they can communicate with one another, not only in hu- 
man language but in a thousand more direct ways. But 
granting this communication between them, does the mere 
existence of myriads of independent personalities, living 
side by side in a world common to all, justify us in speak- 
ing of the original system of things as being pluralistic 
rather than monistic ? 

Human language, at any rate, founded on the fact that 
these separate souls can communicate with one another, 
seems very reluctant to use any but monistic terms. We 
say "the system of things," not "the systems of things. " 
And yet it is only by an act of faith that human language 
makes the grand assumption that the complex vision of 
all these myriad entities tells the same story. 

We say "the uni verse"; yet may it not be that there 
are as many "universes" as there are conscious personali- 
ties in this unfathomable world? If there were no closer 
unity between the separate souls which fill the universe 
than the fact that they are able, after one primordial act 
of faith, to communicate with one another, these monistic 
assumptions of language might perhaps be disregarded and 
we might have a right to reject such expressions as "sys- 



88 THE COMPLEX VISION 

tern of things' ' and " cosmos' ' and "universe" and " na- 
ture.' ' 

But it still remains that they are connected, in space and 
in time, by the medium, whatever it may be, which fills 
the gulfs between the planets and the stars. As long as 
these separate souls are invariably associated as they are, 
with physical bodies, and as long as these physical bodies 
are composed of the same mysterious force which we may 
call earth, fire, water, air, ether, electricity, energy, vibra- 
tion, or any other technical or popular name, so long will 
it be legitimate to use these monistic expressions with 
which human language is, so to speak, so deeply stained. 
As a matter of fact we are not left with only this limited 
measure of unity. There are also certain psychological 
experiences — experiences which I believe I have a right to 
regard as universal — which bring these separate souls into ; 
much closer connection. 

Such experiences can be, and have been, ridiculously 
exaggerated. But the undeniable fact that they exist is 
sufficient to prove that in spite of the pluralistic appear- 
ance of things, there is still enough unity available to pre- 
vent the Many from completely devouring the One. The ; 
experiences to which I am referring are experiences which 
the complex vision owes to the intuition. And though ; 
this experience has been made unfair use of, by both mys- 
tics and metaphysicians, it cannot be calmly disregarded. 

The intuition, which is, as I have already pointed out, the i 
feminine counterpart to the imagination, is found, with re- 
gard to this particular problem, uttering so frequent and i 
impressive an oracle that to neglect its voice, would be to J 
nullify and negate the whole activity of the intuition and 
deny it its place among the ultimate energies of vision. 

There is always more difficulty in putting into words -a 
a revelation which the complex vision owes to intuition 
than in regard to any other of its attributes. Reason in 



THE REVELATION 89 

this matter, and sensation and imagination also, have an 
unfair advantage when it comes to words. For human 
language is compelled to draw its images from sensation 
and its logic from reason. But intuition — the peculiarly 
feminine attribute of the soul — finds itself dealing with 
what is barely intelligible and with what is profoundly 
irrational. Thus it naturally experiences a profound dif- 
ficulty in getting itself expressed in words at all. 

And, incidentally, we cannot avoid asking ourselves the 
curious question whether it may not be that language, 
which is so dependent upon the peculiarly masculine at- 
tributes of reason and sensation, has not become an in- 
adequate medium for the expression of what might be 
called the feminine vision of the world? May we not in- 
deed go so far as to hazard the suggestion that when this 
fact, of the masculine domination of language, has been 
adequately recognized, there will emerge upon the earth 
women-philosophers and women-artists who will throw 
completely new light upon many problems? The diffi- 
culty which women experience in getting expressed in defi- 
nite terms, whether in philosophy or art, the co-ordinated 
rhythm of their complex vision, may it not be largely due 
to the fact that the attribute of intuition which is their 
most vital organ of research has remained so inarticulate? 
And may not the present wave of psychological "mysti- 
cism," which just now is so prominent a psychic phe- 
nomenon, be due to the vague and, in many cases, the 
clumsy attempt, which women are now making to get their 
intuitive contribution into line with the complex vision 
of the rest ? 

When the universe is referred to as "Nature," may it 
not be that it is this very element, this strange wisdom of 
the abysmal "Mothers," which humanity thinks of as 
struggling to utter its unutterable secret? 

How, then, for the sake of its contribution to the ulti- 



90 THE COMPLEX VISION 

mate rhythm, does the complex vision articulate this mys- 
terious oracle from the feminine principle in life, as it 
brokenly and intermittently lifts "up its voice? 

One aspect of this oracle's voice is precisely what we are 
concerned with now. I mean the problem of the relation 
of the One to the Many. The merely logical conception of 
unity is misleading because the wavering mass of impres- 
sion which makes up our life has a margin which recedes 
on every side into unfathomableness. This conception has 
two aspects. In the first place it implies continuity, by 
which I mean that everything in the world is in touch with 
everything else. 

In the second place it implies totality, by which I mean 
that everything in the world can be considered as one 
rounded-off and complete "whole." According to this sec- 
ond aspect of the case, we think of the world as an integral 
One surrounded by nothingness, in the same way that the 
individual soul is surrounded by the universe. 

The revelation of the complex vision finds the second of 
these two aspects entirely misleading. It accepts the con- 
ception of continuity, and rejects the conception of total- 
ity. It rejects the conception of "totality/' because "to- 
tality," in this cosmic sense, is a thing of which it has 
no experience; and the revelation of the complex vision 
is entirely based on experience. The margins of the world, 
receding without limit in every direction, prevent us from 
ever arriving at the conception of ' ' totality. ' ' 

What right have we to regard the universe as a totality, 
when all we are conscious of is a mass of wavering impres- 
sion continued unfathomable in every direction? In only 
one sense, therefore, have we a right to speak of the unity 
of the system of things; and that is in the sense of con- 
tinuity. Since this mass of impression, which we name the 
universe, is on all sides lost in a margin of unfathomable- 
ness, it is, after all, only a limited portion of it which 






i 



THE REVELATION 91 

comes into the scope of our consciousness. It is one of the 
curious exaggerations of our logical reason that we should 
be tempted to " round off" this mystery. The combined 
voices of imagination and intuition protest against such an 
enclosed circle. 

The same revelation of the complex vision which gives 
objective reality to what is outside our individual soul in- 
sists that this objective reality extends beyond the limited 
circle of our consciousness. The device by which the log- 
ical reason " rounds off" the conception of continuity by 
the conception of totality is the device of the mathematical 
formula of " infinity." 

The imaginative movement by which the complex vision 
of the soul plunges into the abysses of stellar space, seek- 
ing to fathom, at least in a mental act, immensity beyond 
immensity, and gulf beyond gulf, is a definite human ex- 
perience. It is the actual experience of the soul itself, 
dropping its plummet into immensity, and finding immen- 
sity unfathomable. But as soon as the logical reason dom- 
inates the situation, in place of this palpable plunge into 
a real concrete experience, with its accompanying sensa- 
tion of appalling wonder and terrible freedom, we are 
offered nothing but a thin, dry, barren mathematical form- 
ula called "infinity," the mere mention of which freezes 
the imagination at its source. 

What, in fact, the complex vision reveals to us is that 
all these arid formulae, such as infinity, the Absolute Be- 
ing, and the Universal Cause, are conceptions projected 
into the real and palpable bosom of unfathomable life by 
the very enemy and antagonist of life, the aboriginal emo- 
tion of inert malice. This is why so often in the history 
of the human race the conception of "God" has been the 
worst enemy of the soul. The conception of "God" by 
its alliance with the depressing mathematical formula of 
"infinity" has indeed done more than any other human 



92 THE COMPLEX VISION 

perversion to obliterate the beauty and truth of the emo- 
tional feeling which we name ' ' religion. ' ' 

The revelation of the complex vision makes it clear to 
us that the idea of "God," in alliance with the idea of' 
"Infinity," is a projection, into religious experience, of 
the emotion of inert malice. As soon as the palpable un- 
fathomableness of space is reduced to the barren notion of 
a mathematical "infinity" all the free and terrible beauty 
of life is lost. We have pressed our hands against our 
prison-gates and found them composed of a material more 
rigid than adamant, the material of " thought-in-the-ab- 
stract." 

Now although our chief difficulty in regard to this in- 
sistent problem of the One and the Many has been got 
rid of by eliminating from the notion of the One all idea 
of totality, it is still true that something in us remains 
unsatisfied while our individual soul is thought of as abso- 
lutely isolated from all other souls. It is here, as I have 
already said, that the peculiarly feminine attribute of in- 
tuition comes to our rescue. The fact that we can com- 
municate together by human and sub-human language, 
does not, though it implies a basic similarity in our com- 
plex vision, really satisfy us. 

A strange unhappiness, a vague misery, a burden of un- 
utterable nostalgia, troubles the loneliness of our soul. 
And yet it is not, this vague longing, a mere desire to 
break the isolating circle of the "I am I" and to invade, 
and mingle with, other personalities. It is something 
deeper than this. It is a desire to break the isolation of 
all personalities, and to enter, in company with all, some 
larger, fuller, freer level of life, where what we call "the 
limits of personality" are surpassed and transcended. 

This underlying misery of the soul is, in fact, a con- 
stant recognition that by the isolated loneliness of our 
deepest self we are keeping at a distance something — 



THE REVELATION 93 

some unutterable flow of happiness — which would de- 
stroy for us all fears and all weariness, and would end for 
ever the obscene and sickening burden of the commonplace. 
It is precisely at this point that the intuition comes to the 
rescue; supplying our complex vision with that peculiar 
"note," or "strain of music," without which the orches- 
tral harmony must remain incomplete. 

In seeking to recall those great moments when the "apex- 
thought" of the complex vision revealed to us the secret 
of things, we find ourselves remembering how, when in the 
presence of some supreme work of art, or of some action 
of heroic sacrifice, or of some magical effect of nature, or 
of some heart-breaking gesture of tragic emotion in some 
simple character, we have suddenly been transported out 
of the closed circle of our personal life into something that 
was at once personal and impersonal. At such a moment 
it seems as if we literally "died" to ourself, and became 
something "other" than ourself; and yet at the same time 
"found" ourself, as we had never "found" ourself before. 

What the complex vision seems to reveal to us about this 
great human experience is that it is an initiation into an 
"eternal vision," into a "vision of the immortals," i^to a 
mood, a temper, a "music of the spheres," wherein the 
creative mystery of the emotion of love finds its consum- 
mation. The peculiar opportunity of an experience of 
this kind, its temporal "occasion," shall we say, seems to 
be more often supplied by the intuition, than by any other 
attribute of the complex vision. 

Intuition having this power, it is not surprising that 
many souls should misuse and abuse this great gift. The 
temptation to allow the intuition to absorb the whole field 
of consciousness is to certain natures almost irresistible. 
And yet, when intuition is divorced from the other aspects 
of the rhythm of life, its tendency towards what might be 
called "the passion of identity" very easily lapses into a 



94 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sort of spiritual sensuality, destructive to the creative 
freedom of the soul. Woe to the artist who falls into the 
quagmire of unbalanced intuition! It is as if he were 
drugged with a spiritual lust. 

To escape from self-loathing, to escape from the odious 
monotony and the indecent realism of life — what a 
relief! How desirable to be confronted no longer by that 
impassable gulf between one's own soul and all other liv- 
ing souls! How desirable to cross the abyss which sep- 
arates the " something " which is the substance of our be- 
ing from the "something" which is the substance of the 
"objective mystery"! 

And yet, according to the revelation of the complex vi- 
sion, this "spiritual ecstasy" is a perversion of the true 
art of life. The true art of life finds in "the vision of 
the immortals, ' ' and in ' ' the vision of the immortals ' ' alone, 
its real escape from evil. This "passion of identity," 
offered us by the vice, by the madness of intuition, is not 
in harmony with the great moments of the soul. Its 
"identity" is but a gross, mystical, clotted "identity"; 
and its "heaven" is not the "heaven" of the Christ. 

If the ' ' ecstasy of identity, ' ' as the unbalanced attribute 
of intuition forces it upon us, were in very truth the pur- 
pose of life, how grotesque a thing life would be! It 
would then be the purpose of life to create personality, 
only in order to drown it in the impersonal. In other 
words it would be the purpose of life to create the 
"higher" in order that it should lose itself in the lower. 
At its very best this "ecstasy of identity" is the expres- 
sion of what might be called the "lyrical" element in 
things. But the secret of life is not lyrical, as many of 
the prophets have supposed, but dramatic, as all the great 
artists have shown. For the essence of life is contradic- 
tion. And contradiction demands a "for" and an 
"against," a protagonist and an antagonist. What the 



THE REVELATION 95 

revelation of the complex vision discloses is the inherent 
duality of all things. Pleasure and pain, night and day, 
man and woman, good and evil, summer and winter, life 
and death, personality and fate, love and malice, the soul 
and the objective mystery, these are the threads out of 
which the texture of existence is woven; and there is no 
escape from these, except in that eternal "nothingness" 
which itself is the "contradiction" or "opposite" of that 
"all," which it reduces to chaos and annihilation. Thus 
runs the revelation of the complex vision. 

This integral soul of ours, made of a stuff which for ever 
defies analysis; this objective mystery, made of a stuff 
which for ever defies analysis; these two things perpet- 
ually confront one another in a struggle that only annihi- 
lation can end. The vision of the eternal implies the pass- 
ing of the transitory. For what cannot cease from being 
beautiful has no real beauty ; and what cannot cease from 
being true has no real truth. The art of life according 
to the revelation of the complex vision, consists in giving 
to the transitory the form of the eternal. It is the art 
of creating a rhythm, a music, a harmony, so passionate 
and yet so calm, that the mere fact of having once or 
twice attained it is sufficient "to redeem all sorrows." 

The assumption that death ends it all, is an assumption 
which the very nature of love calls upon us to make; for, 
if we did not make it make it, something different from love 
would be the object and purpose of our life. But the 
revelation of the complex vision, in our supreme moments, 
discloses to us that love itself is the only justification for 
life ; and therefore, by making the assumption that the 
soul perishes, we put once and for all out of our thought 
that formidable revival of love, the idea of personal im- 
mortality. 

For the idea of personal immortality, like the idea of an 
Absolute God, is a projection of the aboriginal "inert" 



96 THE COMPLEX VISION 

malice. It must be remembered that the revelation of the 
complex vision, by laying stress upon the creative energy 
of the soul in its grappling with the objective mystery, 
implies an element of indeterminism, or free choice, in re- 
gard to the ultimate nature of the world. Man, in a very 
profound sense, perpetually creates the world according 
to his will and desire. Nor can he ever know at what 
point, in the struggle between personality and destiny, 
the latter is bound to win. Such a point may seem to be 
reached; until some astounding "act of faith" on the part 
of the soul flings that " point" into a yet further remote- 
ness. And this creative power in the soul of man may ap- 
ply in ways which at present our own race has hardly 
dared to contemplate. It may apply, for instance, to the 
idea of personal immortality. 

Personal immortality may be a thing which the soul, 
by a concentrated act of creative will, can secure for itself, 
or can reject for itself. It may be, if we take the whole 
conscious and subconscious purpose of a man's life, a mat- 
ter of choice. 

But when a man makes a choice of such a kind, when a 
man concentrates his energy upon surviving the death of 
his body, he is deliberately selecting a "lower" purpose 
for his life in place of a "higher." In other words, in- 
stead of concentrating his will upon the evocation of the 
emotion of love, he is concentrating his will upon self- 
realization or self -continuance. What he is really doing 
is even worse than this. For since what we call "emo- 
tion" is an actual projection into the matrix of the ob- 
jective mystery, of the very substance and stuff of the 
soul, when the will thus concentrates upon personal im- 
mortality, it takes the very substance of the soul and per- 
verts it to the satisfaction of inert malice. In other words 
it actually transforms the stuff of the soul from its posi- 



THE REVELATION 97 

tive to its negative chemistry, and produces a relative 
victory of malice over love. 

The soul's desires for personal immortality is one of 
the aspects of the soul's "possessive" instinct. The soul 
desires to "possess" itself — itself as it exactly is, itelf 
in its precise and complete "status quo" — without inter- 
ruption for ever. But love has a very different desire 
from this. Love is not concerned with time at all — for 
time has a "future"; and any contemplation of a "fu- 
ture" implies the activity of something in the soul which 
is different from love, implies something which is concerned 
with outward events and occurrences and chances. But love 
is not concerned with outward events, whether past or fu- 
ture. Love desires eternity and eternity alone. Or rather 
it does not "desire" eternity. It is eternity. It is an 
eternal Now, in which what will happen and what has 
happened are irrelevant and unimportant. 

All this offers us an intelligible explanation of a very 
bewildering phenomenon in human life. I mean the in- 
stinctive disgust experienced by the aesthetic sense when 
men, who otherwise seem gentle and good, display an un- 
due and unmeasured agitation about the fate of their 
souls. 

Love never so much as even considers the question of the 
fate of the soul. Love finds, in the mere act of loving, a 
happiness so profound that all such problems seem tire- 
some and insignificant. The purpose of life is to attain 
the rhythmic ecstasy of all love's intrinsic potentialities. 
This desire for personal immortality is not one of love's 
intrinsic potentialities. When a human soul has lost by 
death the one person it has loved, the strength of its love 
is measured by the greater or less emphasis it places upon 
the problem of the lost one 's ' ' survival. ' ' 

The disgust which the aesthetic sense experiences when 



98 THE COMPLEX VISION 

it encounters a certain sort of mystical and psychic agita- 
tion over the question as to whether the lost one " lives 
still somewhere" is a disgust based upon our instinctive 
knowledge that this particular kind of inquiry would never 
occur to a supreme and self-forgetful love. For this en- 
quiry, this agitation, this dabbling in "psychic evidences," 
is a projection of the baser nature of the soul ; is, in fact, a 
projection of the "possessive instinct," which is only an- 
other name for the original inert malice. 

In the "ave atque vale" of the Roman poet, there is 
much more of the absolute quality of great love than in all 
these psychic dabblings. For in the austere reserve of 
that passionate cry there is the ultimate acceptance, by 
Love itself, of the tragedy of having lived and loved at 
all. There is an acceptance of that aspect of the "vi- 
sion of the immortals" which implies that the possessive 
instinct has no part or lot in the eternal. 

The inhuman cruelties which have been practised by 
otherwise "good" men under the motive of "saving" other 
people's souls, and the inhuman cruelties which have been 
practised by otherwise "good" men under the motive of 
saving their own souls, have, each of them, the same evil 
origin. Love sweeps aside, in one great wave of its own 
nature, all these doubts and ambiguities. It lifts the 
object of its love into its own eternity; and in its own 
eternity the ultimate tragedy of personal separation is 
but one chord of its unbroken rhythm. 

The tragedy of personal separation is not a thing which 
love realizes for the first time when it loses the object of 
its love. It is a thing which is of the very nature of the 
eternity in which love habitually dwells. For the eternity 
in which love habitually dwells is its vision of the tragedy 
of all life. 

This, then, is the original revelation of the complex vi- 
sion. The soul is confronted by an ultimate duality which 



THE REVELATION 99 

extends through the whole mass of its impressions. And 
because this duality extends through every aspect of the 
soul's universe and can be changed and transformed by 
the soul's will, it is inevitable that what the world has 
hitherto named " philosophy " and has regarded as the 
effort of " getting hold" of a reality which exists already, 
should be named by the complex vision the "art of life ' ' 
and should be regarded as the effort of reducing to har- 
mony the unruly impulses and energies which perpetually 
transform and change the world. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 

What we are really, all of us, in search of, whether we 
know it or not, is some concrete and definite symbol of 
life and the "object" of life which shall gather up into 
one living image all the broken, thwarted, devious, and 
discordant impressions which make up our experience. 
What we crave is something that shall, in some permanent 
form and yet in a form that can grow and enrich itself, 
represent and embody the whole circle of the joy and pain 
of existence. What we crave is something into which we 
can throw our personal joys and sorrows, our individual 
sensations and ideas, and know of a certainty that thrown 
into that reservoir, they will blend with all the joys and 
sorrows of all the dead and all the living. 

Such a symbol in order to give us what we need must 
represent the ultimate reach of insight to which human- 
ity has attained. It must be something that, once having 
come into existence, remains independent of our momen- 
tary subjective fancies and our passing moods. It must 
be something of clearer outlines and more definite linea- 
ments than those vague indistinct ecstasies, half-physiolog- 
ical and half-psychic, which the isolated intuition brings 
us. 

Such a symbol must represent the concentrated struggle 
of the human soul with the bitterness of fate and the 
cruelty of fate, its long struggle with the deadly malice 
in itself and the deadly malice in nature. 

There is only one symbol which serves this purpose ; a 

100 



THE UI/JIMATB DUALITY 101 

symbol which has already by the slow process of anony- 
mous creation and discovery established itself in the world. 
I mean the symbol of the figure of Christ. 

This symbol would not have sufficed to satisfy the crav- 
ing of which I speak if it were only a "discovery" of 
humanity. The " God-man" may be "discovered" in na- 
ture; but the "Man-god" must be "created" by man. 

We find ourselves approaching this symbol from many 
points of view, but the point of view which especially con- 
cerns us is to note how it covers the whole field of human 
experience. In this symbol the ultimate duality receives 
its "eternal form" and becomes an everlasting standard 
or pattern of what is most natural and most rhythmic. 
As I advance in my analysis of the relation of the ulti- 
mate duality to this symbolic figure of Christ, it becomes 
necessary to review once more, in clear and concise order, 
the various stages of thought by means of which I prove 
the necessity of some sort of universal symbol, and the 
necessity of moulding this symbol to fit the drama of One 
ultimate duality. 

A summary of the stages of thought through which we 
have already passed will thus be inevitable; but it will be 
a summary of the situation from the view-point of a differ- 
ent angle. 

Philosophy then is an attempt to articulate more vividly 
the nature of reality than such "reality" can get itself ar- 
ticulated in the confused pell-mell of ordinary experience. 
The unfortunate thing is that in this process of articu- 
lating reality philosophy tends to create an artificial world 
of its own, which in the end gets so far away from reality 
that its conclusions when they are confronted with the 
pell-mell of ordinary experience appear remote, strange, 
fantastic, arbitrary, and even laughable. 

This philosophical tendency to create an artificial world 
which when confronted with the real world appears 



102 THE COMPLEX VISION 

strange and remote is due to the fact that philosophers, 
instead of using as their instrument of research the entire 
complex vision, use first one and then another of its iso- 
lated attributes. But there must come moments when, in 
the analysis of so intricate and elaborate a thing as "real- 
ity" by means of so intricate and elaborate an instrument 
as the complex vision, the most genuine and the least arti- 
ficial of philosophies must appear to be following a devious 
and serpentine path. 

These moments of difficulty and obscurity are not, how- 
ever — as long as such a philosophy attaches itself closely 
to "reality" and flows round "reality" like a tide flow- 
ing round submerged rocks or liquid metal flowing round 
the cavities of a mould — a sign that philosophy has de- 
serted reality, but only a sign that the curves and con- 
tours and jagged edges of reality are so intricate and in- 
volved that only a very fluid element can follow their com- 
plicated shape. But these moments of difficulty and ob- 
scurity, these vague and impalpable links in the chain, 
are only to be found in the process by which we arrive at 
our conclusion. When our conclusion has been once 
reached it becomes suddenly manifest to us that it has 
been there, with us, all the while, implicit in our whole 
argument, the secret and hidden cause why the argument 
took the form it did rather than any other. The test of 
any philosophy is not that it should appeal immediately 
and directly to what is called "common-sense," for com- 
mon-sense is no better than a crude and premature syn- 
thesis of superficial experiences ; a synthesis from which the 
supreme and culminating experiences of a person's life 
have been excluded. For in our supreme and culminating 
experiences there is always an element of what might be 
called the "impossible" or of what must be recognized as 
a matter of faith or imagination. 

It is therefore quite to be expected that the conclusions 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 103 

of a philosophy like the philosophy of the complex vision, 
which derives its authority from the exceptional and su- 
preme experiences of all souls, should strike us in our mo- 
ments of "practical common-sense" as foolish, impossible, 
ridiculous and even insane. All desperate and formidable 
efforts towards creation have struck and will strike the 
mood of "practical common-sense" as ridiculous and in- 
sane. This is true of every creative idea that has ever 
emanated from the soul of man. 

For the mood of "practical common-sense" is a projec- 
tion of the baser instinct of self-preservation and is pene- 
trated through and through with that power of inert mal- 
ice which itself might be called the instinct of self-preser- 
vation of the enemy of life. i ' Practical common-sense ' ' is 
the name we give to that superficial synthesis of our baser 
self -preservative instincts, which, when it is reinforced and 
inspired by "the will of malice" out of the evil depths 
of the soul, is the most deadly of all antagonists of new 
life. 

We need suffer, therefore, no surprise or pain if we find 
the conclusions of the philosophy of the complex vision 
ridiculous and "impossible" to our mood of practical 
common-sense. If on the contrary they did not seem in- 
sane and foolish to such a mood we might well be pro- 
foundly suspicious of them. For although there are very 
few certainties in this world, one thing at least is certain, 
namely that for any truth or reality to satisfy the creative 
spirit in us it must present itself as something dangerous, 
destructive, ridiculous and insane to that instinct in us 
which resists creation. 

But although "the appeal to common-sense" is no test 
of the truth of a philosophy, since common-sense is pre- 
cisely the thing in us which has a malicious hostility to 
the creative spirit, yet no philosophy can afford to disre- 
gard an appeal to actual experience as long as actual ex- 



10-4 THE COMPLEX VISION 

perience includes the rare moments of our life as well as 
all the rest. Here is indeed a true and authentic test of 
philosophic validity. If we take our philosophical con- 
clusions, so to speak, in our hands, and plunge with them 
into the very depths of actual experience, do they grow 
more organic, more palpable and more firm, or do they 
melt away into the flowing waters ? 

Who is not able to recall the distress of bitter disillu- 
sionment which has followed the collapse of some plausible 
system of " sweet reasonableness ' ' under the granite-like 
impact of a rock of reality which has knocked the bottom 
out of it and left it a derelict upon the waves? This 
collapse of an ordered and reasonable system under the 
impact of some atrocious projection of "crass casuality' , 
is a proof that if a philosophy has not got in it some 
"iron" of its own, if it has not got in it something formi- 
dable and unfathomable, something that can destroy as 
well as create, it is not of much avail against the winds 
and storms of destiny. 

For a philosophy to be a true representation of reality, 
for it to be that reality itself, become conscious and articu- 
late, it is necessary that it should prove most vivid and 
actual at those supreme moments when the soul of man is 
driven to the ultimate wall and is at the breaking-point. 

The truth of a philosophy is not to be tested by what 
we feel about it in moods of practical common-sense; for 
in these moods we have, for some superficial reason, sup- 
pressed more than half of the attributes of our soul. The 
truth of a philosophy can only be tested in those moments 
when the soul, driven to the wall, gathers itself together 
for one supreme effort. But there is, even in less stark 
and drastic hours, an available test of a sound and organic 
philosophy which must not be forgotten. I refer to its ca- 
pacity for being vividly and emphatically summed up and 
embodied in some concrete image or symbol. 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 105 

If a philosophy is so rationalistic that it refuses to lend 
itself to a definite and concrete expression we are justified 
in being more than suspicious of it. 

And we are suspicious of it not because its lack of sim- 
plicity makes it intricate and elaborate, for " reality" is 
intricate and elaborate; but because its inability to find 
expression for its intricacy in any concrete symbol is a 
proof that it is too simple. For the remote conclusions 
of a purely logical and rationalistic philosophy are made 
to appear much less simple than they really are by reason 
of their use of remote technical terms. 

What the soul demands from philosophy is not sim- 
plicity but complexity, for the soul itself is the most com- 
plex thing we know. The thin, rigid, artificial outlines 
of purely rationalistic systems can never be expressed in 
ritual or symbol or drama, not because they are too intri- 
cate, but because they are not intricate enough. 

A genuine symbol, or ritualistic image, is a concrete liv- 
ing organic thing carrying all manner of magical and subtle 
associations. It is an expression of reality which comes 
much nearer to reality than any rationalistic system can 
possibly do. A genuine symbolic or ritualistic image is 
a concrete expression of the complexity of life. It has the 
creative and destructive power of life. It has the formi- 
dable mysteriousness of life, and with all this it has the 
clear-cut directness of life's terrible and exquisite tangi- 
bility. 

When suddenly confronted, then, in the mid-stream of 
life, by the necessity of expressing the starting-point, which 
is also the conclusion, of the philosophy of the complex 
vision, what synthetic image or symbol or ritualistic word 
are we to use in order to sum up its concrete reality ? 

The revelation of life, offered to us by the complex vi- 
sion, is, as we have seen, no very simple or logical affair. 
We are left with the spectacle of innumerable " souls," 



106 THE COMPLEX VISION 

human, sub-human and super-human, held together by some 
indefinable " medium " which enables them to communi- 
cate with one another. Each one of these " souls " at 
once creates and discovers its own individual " universe' ' 
and then by an act of faith assumes that the various 
" universes" created and discovered by all other souls 
are identical with its own. 

That they are identical with its own the soul is led to 
assume with more and more certainty in proportion as its 
communion with other souls grows more and more involved. 
This identity between the various " universes' ' of alien souls 
is rendered more secure and more objective by the fact that 
time and space are found to be essential peculiarities of 
all of them alike. For since time and space are found 
to enter into the original character of all these "uni- 
verses," it becomes a natural and legitimate conclusion 
that all these "universes" are in reality the same "uni- 
verse. ' ' 

We are left, then, with the spectacle of innumerable 
souls confronting a "universe" which in their interaction 
with one another they have half-created and half-discov- 
ered. There is no escape from the implication of this 
phrase "half -discovered." The creative activity of the 
complex vision perpetually modifies, clarifies and moulds 
the mystery which surrounds it; but that there is an ob- 
jective mystery surrounding it, of which time and space 
are permanent aspects, cannot be denied. 

The pure reason's peculiar power of thinking time and 
space away, or of lodging itself outside of time and space, 
is an abstraction which leads us out of the sphere of real- 
ity; because, in its resultant conception, it omits the activ- 
ity of the other attributes of the complex vision. 

The complex vision reveals to us, therefore, three aspects 
of objective mystery. It reveals to us in the first place 
the presence of an objective "something" outside the soul, 






THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 107 

which the soul by its various energies moulds and clarifies 
and shapes. This is that * 'something" which the soul at 
one and the same moment "half -discovers" and " half- 
creates." It reveals to us, in the second place, the pres- 
ence of an indefinable objective "something" which is the 
medium that makes possible the communion of one soul 
with another and with "the invisible companions." 

This is the medium which holds all these separate per- 
sonalities together while each of them half-creates and 
half -discovers his own "universe." 

In the third place it reveals to us the presence, in each 
individual soul, of a sort of "substratum of the soul" or 
something beyond analysis which is the "vanishing point 
of sensation" and the vortex-point or fusion-point where 
the movement which we call "matter" loses itself in the 
movement which we call "mind." 

In all these three aspects of objective mystery, revealed 
to us by the united activities of the complex vision, we are 
compelled, as has been shown, to use the vague and ob- 
scure word "something." We are compelled to apply this 
unilluminating and tantalizing word to all these three 
aspects of "objective mystery," because no other word 
really covers the complex vision's actual experience. 

The soul recognizes that there is "something" outside 
itself which is the "clay" upon which its energy works 
in creating its "universe," but it cannot know anything 
about this "something" except that it is "there"; be- 
cause, directly the soul discovers it, it inevitably moulds 
it and recreates it. There is not one minutest division of 
time between this "discovery" and this "creation"; so all 
that one can say is that the resultant objective "universe" 
is half -created and half -discovered ; and that whatever 
this mysterious "something" may be, apart from the com- 
plex vision, it at any rate has the peculiarity of being 
forced to submit to the complex vision 's creative energy. 



108 THE COMPLEX VISION 

But not only are we compelled to apply the provoking 
and unilluminating word " something " to each of these 
three aspects of objective mystery which the complex vi- 
sion reveals; we are also compelled to assume that each 
one of these is dominated by time and space. 

This implication of "time and space" is necessitated in a 
different way in each of these three aspects of what was 
formerly called "matter." In the first aspect of the thing 
we have time and space as essential characteristics of all 
the various "universes," reduced by an act of faith to 
one "universe," of the souls which fill the world. 

In the second aspect of it we have time and space as 
essential characteristics of that indefinable "medium" 
which holds all these souls together, and which by holding 
them together makes it easier to regard their separate 
"universes" as "one universe," since they find their ground 
or base in one universal "medium." 

In the third aspect of it we have time and space as 
essential characteristics of that "substratum of the soul" 
which is the vanishing-point of sensation and the fusion- 
point of "mind" and "matter." 

We are thus inevitably led to a further conclusion; 
namely, that all these three aspects of objective reality, 
since they are all dominated by time and space, are all 
dominated by the same "time" and the same "space." 
And since it is unthinkable that three coexistent forms 
of objective reality should be all dominated by the same 
time and space and remain absolutely distinct from one 
another, it becomes evident that these three forms of 
objective mystery, these three indefinable "somethings," 
are not separate from one another but are in continual 
contact with one another. 

Thus the fact that all these three aspects of objective 
reality are under the domination of the same time and 
space is a further confirmation of the truth which we have 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 109 

already assumed by an act of faith, namely that all the 
various ''universes/' half -discovered and half-created by 
all the souls in the world, are in reality "one universe." 

The real active and objective existence of this "one 
universe ' ' is made still more sure and is removed still fur- 
ther from all possibility of " illusion,' ' by the fact that 
we are forced to regard it as being not only "our" uni- 
verse but the universe also of those "invisible companions" 
whose vision half-creates it and half-discovers it, even as 
our own vision does. It is true that to certain types of 
mind, for whom the definite recognition of mystery is 
repugnant, it must seem absurd and ridiculous to be driven 
to the acknowledgment of a thing's existence, while at 
the same time we have to confess complete inability to 
predicate anything at all about the thing except that it 
exists. 

It must seem to such minds still more absurd and ridic- 
ulous that we should be driven to recognize no less than 
three aspects of this mysterious "something." 

But since they are included in the same time and space, 
and since, consequently, they are intimately connected with 
one another, it becomes inevitable that we should take the 
yet further step and regard them as three separate aspects 
of one and the same mystery. Thus we are once more 
confronted with the inescapable trinitarian nature of the 
system of things; and just as we have three ultimate as- 
pects of reality in the monistic truth of "the one time and 
space," in the pluralistic truth of the innumerable com- 
pany of living souls and the dualistic truth of the contra- 
dictory nature of all existence; so we have three further 
ultimate aspects of reality, in the incomprehensible ' ' some- 
thing" which holds all souls together; in the incompre- 
hensible "something" out of which all souls create the 
universe; and in the incomprehensible "something" which 
forms the substratum both of the souls of the invisible 



110 THE COMPLEX VISION 

"companions of men" and of the soul of every individual 
thing. 

The supreme unity, therefore, in this complicated world, 
thus revealed to us by the activity of the complex vision, 
is the unity of time and space. This unity is eternally 
reborn and eternally re-discovered every time any living 
personality contemplates the system of things. And since 
"the sons of the universe" must be regarded as contin- 
ually contemplating the system of things, struggling with 
it, moulding it, and changing it, according to their pre- 
exist ent ideal, we are compelled to assume that time and 
space are eternal aspects of reality and that their eternal 
necessity gives the system of things its supreme unity. 

No isolated speculation of the logical reason, function- 
ing apart from the other attributes of the complex vision, 
can undermine this supreme unity of time and space. 
The "a priori unity of apperception" is an unreality com- 
pared with this reality. The all-embracing cosmic 
"monad," contemplating itself as its eternal object, is 
an unreality compared with this reality. 

We are left with a pluralistic world of individual souls, 
finding their pattern and their ideal in the vision of the 
"immortal gods" and perpetually rediscovering and re- 
creating together "a universe" which like themselves is 
dominated by time and space and which like themselves 
is for ever divided against itself in an eternal and unfath- 
omable duality. 

The ultimate truth of the system of things according to 
the revelation of the complex vision is thus found to con- 
sist in the mystery of personality confronting " something" 
which seems impersonal. Over both these things, over 
the personal soul and over the primordial "clay" or 
"energy" or "movement" or "matter" out of which the 
personal soul creates its "universe," time and space are 
dominant. But since we can predicate nothing of this orig- 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 111 

inal " plasticity' ' except that it is Aplastic" and that time 
and space rule over it, it is in a strict sense illegitimate to 
say that this primordial "clay" or " world stuff" is in 
itself divided into a duality. We know nothing, and can 
never know anything about it, beyond the bare fact of its 
existence. Its duality comes from the duality in us. It is 
we who create the contradiction upon which its life de- 
pends. It is from the unfathomable duality in the soul 
of the "companions of men" that the universe is brought 
forth. 

The ultimate duality which perpetually creates the world 
is the ultimate duality in all living souls and in the souls 
of "the sons of the universe." But although it is we 
ourselves who in the primal act of envisaging the world 
endow it with this duality, it would be an untrue state- 
ment to say that this duality in the material universe is 
an "illusion." It is no more an illusion than the objective 
material world itself is an illusion. Both are created by 
the inter-action between the mystery of personality and 
the mystery of what seems the impersonal. Thus it re- 
mains perfectly true that what we sometimes call "brute 
matter" possesses an element of malignant inertness and 
malicious resistance to the power of creation. This malice 
of the impersonal, this malignant inertness of ' ' matter, ' ' is 
an ultimate fact ; and is not less a fact because it depends 
upon the existence of the same malice and the same inert 
resistance in our own souls. 

Nor are we able to escape from the conclusion that this 
malignant element in the indefinable "world-stuff" exists 
independently of any human soul. It must be thought of 
as dependent upon the same duality in the souls of "the 
sons of the universe" as that which exists in the souls of 
men. For although the primordial ideas of truth and 
nobility and beauty, brought together by the emotion of 
love, are realized in the "gods" with an incredible and 



112 THE COMPLEX VISION 

immortal intensity, yet the souls of the " gods' ' could not 
be souls at all if they were not subject to the same duality 
as that which struggles within ourselves. 

It follows from this that we are forced to recognize the 
presence of a potentiality of evil or malice in the souls 
of "the sons of the universe.' ' But although we cannot 
escape from the conclusion that evil zr malice exists in the 
souls of the immortals as in all human souls, yet in their 
souls this evil or malice must be regarded as perpetually 
overcome by the energy of the power of love. This over- 
coming of malice by the power of love, or of evil by "good," 
in the souls of "the sons of the universe," must not be re- 
garded as a thing once for all accomplished, but as a thing 
eternally re-attained as the result of an unceasing strug- 
gle, a struggle so desperate, so passionate and so unfath- 
omable, that it surpasses all effort of the mind to realize 
or comprehend it. 

It must not, moreover, be forgotten that what the com- 
plex vision reveals about this eternal struggle between 
love and malice in the souls of "the sons of the universe" 
and in the souls of all living things, is not that love and 
malice are vague independent elemental "forces" which 
obsess or possess or function through the soul which is their 
arena, but rather that they themselves are the very stuff 
and texture and essence of the individual soul itself. 

Their duality is unfathomable because the soul is un- 
fathomable. The struggle between them is unfathomable 
because the struggle between them is nothing less than the 
intrinsic nature of the soul. The soul is unthinkable 
without this unfathomable struggle in its inherent being 
between love and malice or between life and what resists 
life. We are therefore justified in saying that "the uni- 
verse" is created by the perpetual struggle between love 
and malice or between life and what resists life. But when 
we say this we must remember that this is only true be- 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 113 

cause "the universe" is half-discovered and half-created 
by the souls of "the sons of the universe" and by the souls 
of all living things which fill the universe. This unfathom- 
able duality which perpetually re-creates Nature, does not 
exist in Nature apart from living things, although it does 
exist in nature apart from any individual living thing. 

All those aspects of the objective universe which we 
usually call "inanimate," such as earth, water, air, fire, 
ether, electricity, energy, movement, matter and the like, 
including the stellar and planetary bodies and the chem- 
ical medium, whatever it may be, which unites them, must 
be regarded as sharing, in some inscrutable way, in this 
unfathomable struggle. We are unable to escape from 
this conception of them, as thus sharing in this struggle, 
because they are themselves the creation and discovery of 
the complex vision of the soul; and the soul is, as we have 
seen, dependent for its every existence upon this struggle. 

In the same way, all those other aspects of the universe 
which are "animate" but sub-human, such as grass, moss, 
lichen, plants, sea-weed, trees, fish, birds, animals and the 
like, must be regarded as sharing in a still more intimate 
sense in this unfathomable struggle. This conception has 
a double element of truth. For not only do these things 
depend for their form and shape and reality upon the 
complex vision of the soul which contemplates them; but 
they are themselves, since they are things endowed with, 
life, possessed of some measure or degree of the complex 
vision. 

And if the souls of men and the souls of the "sons of 
the universe" are inextricably made up of the very stuff 
of this unfathomable struggle, between life and what re- 
sists life, we cannot escape from the conclusion that the 
souls of plants and birds and animals and all other living 
things are inextricably made up of the stuff of the same 
unfathomable struggle. For where there is life there must 



114 THE COMPLEX VISION 

be a soul possessed of life. Life, apart from some soul 
possessed with life, is an abstraction of the logical reason 
and a phantom of no more genuine reality than the "a 
priori unity of apperception' ' or "the universal self-con- 
scious monad.' ' 

"What we call reality, or the truth of the system of things, 
is nothing less than an innumerable company of personali- 
ties confronting an objective mystery; and while we are 
driven to regard the "inanimate," such as earth and air 
and water and fire, as the bodily expressions of certain 
living souls, so are we much more forcibly driven to regard 
the "animate," wherever it is found, as implying the ex- 
istence of some measure of personality and some degree of 
consciousness. 

Life, apart from a soul possessing life, is not life at all. 
It is an abstraction of the logical reason which we cannot 
appropriate to our instinct or imagination. A vague 
phrase, like the phrase "life-force," conveys to us whose 
medium of research is the complex vision, simply no in- 
telligible meaning at all. It is on a par with the "over- 
soul"; and, to the philosophy of the complex vision, both 
the "life-force" and the "over-soul" are vague, material- 
istic, metaphorical expressions which do not attain to the 
dignity of a legitimate symbolic image. 

They do not attain to this, because a legitimate symbolic 
image must appeal to the imagination and the aesthetic 
sense by the possession of something concrete and intelli- 
gible. 

Any individual personal soul is concrete and intelligible. 
The personal souls of "the sons of the universe" are con- 
crete and intelligible. But the "over-soul" and the "life- 
force" are neither concrete nor intelligible and therefore 
cannot be regarded as legitimate symbols. One of the most 
important aspects of the method of philosophical enquiry 
which the philosophy of the complex vision adopts is this 






THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 115 

use of legitimate symbolic images in place of illegitimate 
metaphorical images. 

This use of concrete, tangible, intelligible images is a 
thing which has to pay its price. And the price which it 
has to pay is the price of appearing childish, absurd and 
ridiculous to the type of mind which advocates the exclusive 
use of the logical reason as the sole instrument of philo- 
sophical research. This price of appearing naive, childish 
and ridiculous has to be paid shamelessly and in full. 

The type of mind which exacts this price, which demands 
in fact that the concrete intelligible symbols of the phi- 
losophy of the complex vision should be regarded as child- 
ish and ridiculous, is precisely the type of mind for whom 
" truth" is a smoothly evolutionary affair, an affair of 
steady "progress," and for whom, therefore, the mere fact 
of an idea being "a modern idea" implies that it is "true" 
and the mere fact of an idea being a classical idea or a 
mediaeval idea implies that it is crude and inadequate if 
not completely "false." 

To the philosophy of the complex vision "truth" does 
not present itself as an affair of smooth and steady histor- 
ical evolution but as something quite different from this — 
as a work of art, in fact, dependent upon the struggle of 
the individual soul with itself, and upon the struggle of 
"the souls of the sons of the universe" with themselves. 
And although the struggle of the souls of "the sons of the 
universe" towards a fuller clarifying of the mystery of 
life must be regarded as having its concrete tangible his- 
tory in time and space, yet this history is not at all synony- 
mous with what is usually called ' ' progress. ' ' 

An individual human soul, the apex-thought of whose 
complex vision has attained an extraordinary and unusual 
rhythm, must be regarded as having approached nearer 
to the vision of "the sons of the universe" although such 
an one may have lived in the days of the patriarchs or in 



116 THE COMPLEX VISION 

the Greek days or in the days of mediaevalism or of the 
renaissance, than any modern rationalistic thinker who is 
obsessed by "the latest tendencies of modern thought.' ' 

The souls of "the immortals" must certainly be re- 
garded as developing and changing and as constantly ad- 
vancing towards the realization of their hope and premoni- 
tion. But this "advance" is also, as we have seen, in the 
profoundest sense a "return," because it is a movement 
towards an idea which already is implicit and latent. And 
in the presence of this '"advance," which is also a "re- 
turn," all historic ages of individual human souls are 
equal and co-existent. 

All real symbols are "true," wherever and whenever 
they are invoked, because all real symbols are the expres- 
sion of that rare unity of the complex vision which is man 's 
deepest approximation to the mystery of life. The symbol 
of the cross, for instance, has far more truth in it than 
any vague metaphorical expression such as the "over- 
soul." The symbolic ritual of the Mass, for instance, has 
far more truth in it than any metaphorical expression 
such as the "life-force." And although both the Cross 
and the Mass are inadequate and imperfect symbols with 
regard to the vision of * ' the sons of the universe, ' ' because 
they are associated with the idea of an historic incarna- 
tion, yet in comparison with any modern rationalistic or 
chemical metaphor they are supremely true. 

The philosophy of the complex vision, just because it is 
the philosophy of personality, must inevitably use images 
which appear to the rationalistic mind as naive and child- 
ish and ridiculous. But the philosophy of the complex vi- 
sion prefers to express itself in terms which are concrete, 
tangible and intelligible, rather than in terms which are 
no more than vague projections of phantom logic ab- 
stracted from the concrete activity of real personality. 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 117 

In completing this general picture of the starting point 
of the philosophy of the complex vision there is one fur- 
ther implication which ought to be brought fully into the 
light. I refer to a doctrine which certain ancient and 
mediaeval thinkers adopted, and which must always be 
constantly re-appearing in human thought because it is 
an inevitable projection of the human conscience when the 
human conscience functions in isolation and in disregard 
of the other attributes. I mean the doctrine of the essen- 
tially evil character of that phenomenon which was for- 
merly called " matter" but which I prefer to call the ob- 
jective mystery. 

According to this doctrine — which might be called the 
eternal heresy of puritanism — this objective mystery, this 
world-stuff, this eternal " energy" or "movement," this 
"flesh and blood" through which the soul expresses itself 
and of which the physical body is made, is "evil"; and 
the opposite of this, that is to say "mind" or "thought" 
or "consciousness" or "spirit" is alone "good." 

According to this doctrine the world is a struggle be- 
tween "the spirit" which is entirely good and "the flesh" 
which is entirely evil. To the philosophy of the complex 
vision this doctrine appears false and misleading. It de- 
tects in this doctrine, as I have hinted, an attempt of the 
conscience to arrogate to itself the whole field of expe- 
rience and to negate all the other attributes, especially 
emotion and the aesthetic sense. 

Such a doctrine negates the whole activity of the com- 
plex vision because it assumes the independent existence 
of "flesh and blood" as opposed to "mind." But "flesh 
and blood" is a thing which has no existence apart from 
"mind," because it is a thing " half -created " as well as 
"half -discovered" by "mind." 

It negates the aesthetic sense because the aesthetic sense 



118 THE COMPLEX VISION 

requires the existence of "the body" or of "flesh and 
blood" or of what we call "matter," and cannot exert its 
activity without the reality of this thing. 

It negates emotion, because the emotion of love de- 
mands, for its full satisfaction, nothing less than "the 
eternal idea of flesh and blood." And since love demands 
the "eternal idea of flesh and blood," "flesh and blood" 
cannot be "evil." 

This doctrine of the evil nature of "matter" is obviously 
a perversion of what the complex vision reveals to us about 
the eternal duality. According to this doctrine, which I 
call the puritan heresy, the duality resolves itself into a 
struggle between the spirit and the flesh. But according 
to the revelation of the complex vision the true duality 
is quite different from this. In the true duality there is 
an evil aspect of "matter" and also an evil aspect of 
"mind." 

In the true duality "spirit" is by no means necessarily 
good. For since the true duality lies in the depths of the 
soul itself, what we call "spirit" must very often be evil. 
According to the revelation of the complex vision, evil or 
malice is a positive force, of malignant inertness, resisting 
the power of creation or of love. It is, as we have seen, 
the primordial or chaotic weight which opposes itself to 
life. 

But "flesh and blood" or any other definite form of 
"matter" has already in large measure submitted to the 
energy of creation and is therefore both "good" and 
"evil." That original shapeless "clay" or "objective 
mystery" out of which the complex vision creates the 
universe certainly cannot be regarded as "evil," for we 
can never know anything at all about it except that it 
exists and that it lends itself to the creative energy of the 
complex vision. And in so far as it lends itself to the 
creative energy of the complex vision it certainly cannot 



THE ULTIMATE DUALITY 119 

be regarded as entirely evil, but must obviously be both 
good and evil ; even as the complex vision itself, being the 
vision of the soul, is both good and evil. 

According to the philosophy of the complex vision then, 
what we call "mind" is both good and evil and what we 
call "matter" being intimately dependent upon "mind" 
is both good and evil. We are forced, therefore, to recog- 
nize the existence of both spiritual "evil" and spiritual 
"good" in the unfathomable depths of the soul. But just 
because personality is itself a relative triumph of good 
over evil it is possible to conceive of the existence of a 
personality in whom evil is perpetually overcome by good, 
while it is impossible to conceive of a personality in whom 
good is perpetually overcome by evil. 

In other words, all personalities are relatively good; 
and some personalities namely those of "the immortals" 
are, as far as we are concerned, absolutely good. All per- 
sonalities including even the personalities of "the immor- 
tals" have evil in them, but no personality can be the 
embodiment of evil, in the sense in which "the sons of 
the universe" are the embodiment of good. 

I thus reach the conclusion of this complicated sum- 
mary of the nature of the ultimate duality and the neces- 
sity of finding a clear and definite symbol for it. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 

It now becomes necessary to consider in greater detail 
those primary human conceptions of truth, beauty, and 
goodness, which I have already referred to as the soul's 
"ultimate ideas/ ' Let no one think that any magical 
waving of the wand of modern psychology can explain 
away these universal human experiences. They may be 
named by different appellations; but considering the enor- 
mous weight of historical tradition behind these names it 
would seem absurd and pedantic to attempt to re-baptize 
them at this late hour. 

Human nature, in its essentials, has undergone no ma- 
terial change since we have any record of it; and to use 
any other word than " beauty " for what we mean by 
beauty, or than "goodness" for what we mean by good- 
ness, would seem a mere superstition of originality. The 
interpretation offered, in what follows, of the existence of 
these experiences is sufficiently startling to require no 
assistance from novelty of phrasing to give it interest and 
poignancy. That our souls are actually able to touch, in 
the darkness which surrounds us, the souls of super-human 
beings, and that the vision of such super-human beings is 
the "eternal vision " wherein the mystery of love is con- 
summated, is a doctrine of such staggering implications 
that it seems wise, in making our way towards it, to use 
the simplest human words and to avoid any " stylistic " 
shocks. 

It seems advisable also to advance with scrupulous lei- 

120 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 121 

sureliness in this formidable matter and at certain inter- 
vals to turn round as it were, and survey the path by 
which we have come. The existence of super-human be- 
ings, immeasurably superior to man, is in itself a harm- 
less and natural speculation. It is only when it presents 
itself as a necessary link in philosophical discussion that 
it appears startling. And the mere fact that it does ap- 
pear startling when introduced into philosophy shows how 
lamentably philosophy has got itself imprisoned in dull, 
mechanical, mathematical formulae; in formulae so arid 
and so divorced from life, that the conception of person- 
ality, applied to man or to the gods, seems to us as excit- 
ing as an incredible fairy story when brought into rela- 
tion with them. 

As the souls of men, then, each with its own complex 
vision, move side by side along the way, or across one 
another's path, they are driven by the necessity of things 
to exchange impressions with regard to the nature of life. 
In their communications with one another they become 
aware of the presence, at the back of their consciousness, 
of an invisible standard of truth, of beauty, of goodness. 
It is from this standard of beauty and truth and goodness, 
from this dream, this vision, this hope, that all these souls 
seem to themselves to draw their motive of movement. 
But though they seem to themselves to be "moving" into 
an indetermined future still to be created by their wills, 
they also seem to themselves to be "returning" towards 
the discovery of that invisible standard of beauty, truth 
and goodness, which has as their motive-impulse been with 
them from the beginning. This implicit standard, this 
invisible pattern and test and arbitrement of all philosophiz- 
ing, is what I call "the vision of the immortals." Some 
minds, both philosophical and religious, seem driven to 
think of this invisible pattern, this standard of truth and 
beauty, as the parent of the universe rather than as its 



122 THE COMPLEX VISION 

offspring. I cannot bring myself to take this view because 
of the fact that the ultimate revelation of the world as 
presented to man's complex vision is essential and unfath- 
omably dualistic. 

A "parent" of the universe can only be thought of as 
a stopping-place of all thought. He can only be imagined 
— for strictly speaking he cannot be thought of at all 
— as some unutterable mystery out of which the universe 
originally sprang. From this unutterable mystery, to 
which we have no right to attribute either a monistic 
or a pluralistic character, we may, I suppose, imagine to 
emerge a perpetual torrent of duality. 

Towards this unutterable mystery, about which even to 
say "it is" seems to be saying too much, it is impossible 
for the complex vision to have any attitude at all. It can 
neither love it nor hate it. It can neither reject it nor 
accept it. It can neither worship it nor revolt against it. 
It is only imaginable in the illegitimate sense of metaphor 
and analogy. It is simply the stopping-place of the com- 
plex vision; that stopping-place beyond which anything 
is possible and nothing is thinkable. 

This thing, which is at once everything and nothing, 
this thing which is no thing but only the unutterable limit 
where all things pass beyond thought, cannot be accepted 
by the complex vision as the parent of the universe. The 
universe has therefore no parent, no origin, no cause, no 
creator. Eternally it re-creates itself and eternally it 
divides itself into that ultimate duality which makes crea- 
tion possible. 

That monistic tendency of human thought, which is it- 
self a necessary projection of the monistic reality of the 
individual soul, cannot, except by an arbitrary act of faith, 
resolve this ultimate duality into unity. Such a primordial 
"act of faith" it can and must make with regard to the 
objective reality of other souls. But such an "act of 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 123 

faith' ' is not demanded with regard to the unutterable 
mystery behind the universe. We have not, strictly 
speaking, even the right to use the expression "an unut- 
terable mystery." All we have a right to do is just to 
utter the final judgment — "beyond this limit neither 
thought nor imagination can pass." 

What the complex vision definitely denies to us, there- 
fore, is the right to regard this thing, which is no thing, 
with any emotion at all. The expression "unutterable 
mystery" is a misleading one because it appears to jus- 
tify the emotions of awe and reverence. We have no 
right to regard this thin simulacrum, this mathematical 
formula, this stopping-place of thought, with any feelings 
of awe or reverence. We have not even a right to regard 
it with humorous contempt; for, being nothing at all, it 
is beneath contempt. 

Humanity has a right to indulge in that peculiar emo- 
tional attitude which is called "worship" towards either 
side of the ultimate duality. It has a right to worship, 
if it pleases — though to do so several attitudes of the 
complex vision must be outraged and suppressed — the 
resistant power of malice. It has even a right to worship 
the universe, that turbulent arena of these primal antag- 
onists. What it has no right to worship is the "unutter- 
able mystery" behind the universe; for the simple reason 
that the universe is unfathomable. 

Human thought has its stopping-place. The universe is 
unfathomable. Human thought has a definite limit. The 
universe has no limit. The universe is "unutterably mys- 
terious"; and so also is the human soul; but as far as the 
soul's complex vision is concerned there can be no reality 
"behind the appearances of things" except the reality of 
the soul itself. Thus there is no "parent" of man and of 
the universe. But ' ' the immortal companions ' ' of men are 
implied from man's most intimate experiences of life. For 



124 THE COMPLEX VISION 

if there were no invisible watchers, no arbiters, no stand- 
ards, no tests, no patterns, no ideals; our complex vision, 
in regard to certain basic attributes, would be refuted and 
negated. 

Every soul which exists must be thought of as possessing 
the attribute of ''emotion" with its duality of love and 
malice, the attribute of "taste" with its duality of beauty 
and hideousness, of conscience with its duality of good 
and evil, and the attribute of "reason" with its duality of 
the true and the false. Every one of these basic attributes 
would be reduced to a suicidal confusion of absolute scep- 
tical subjectivity if it could not have faith in some objec- 
tive reality to which it can appeal. 

Such an appeal, to such an objective reality, it does, as 
a matter of fact, continually make, whether it makes it 
consciously or sub-consciously. And just as the soul's 
basic attributes of emotion, taste, conscience, and reason 
indicate an implicit faith in the objective reality of the 
ideas of beauty and nobility and truth ; so the soul 's basic 
attribute of self-consciousness indicates an implicit demand 
that the objective reality of these ideas should be united 
and embodied in actual living and self-conscious "souls" 
external to other l ■ souls. ' ' 

The most dangerous mistake we can make, and the most 
deadly in its implications, is to reduce these "companions 
of men" to a monistic unity and to make this unity what 
the metaphysicians call "absolute" in its embodiment of 
these ultimate ideas. 

In comparison with the fitful and moody subjectivity of 
our individual conceptions of these ideas the vision of the 
immortals may be thought of as embodying them absolutely. 
But in itself it certainly does not embody them absolutely ; 
otherwise the whole movement of life would end. It is 
unthinkable that it should ever embody them absolutely. 
For it is in the inherent nature of such a vision that it 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 125 

should be growing, living, inexhaustible. The most wither- 
ing and deadly of all conceivable dogmas is the dogma that 
there is such a thing as absolute truth, absolute beauty, 
absolute good and absolute love. 

The attraction of such a dogma for the mind of man 
is undoubtedly due to the spirit of evil or of malice. For 
nothing offers a more frozen resistance to the creative 
power than such a faith. Compared with our human vi- 
sions of these ideas the vision of these " companions of 
men" must be thought of as relatively complete. And 
complete it is, with regard to its general synthesis and 
orientation! But it is not really complete; and can never 
be so. For when we consider the nature of love alone, 
it becomes ridiculous to speak of an absolute or complete 
love. If the love of these "companions of men" became 
at any moment incapable of a deeper and wider manifesta- 
tion, at that very moment the whole stream of life would 
cease, the malice of the adversary would prevail, and noth- 
ingness would swallow up the universe. It is because we 
are compelled to regard the complex vision, including all 
its basic attributes, as the vision of a personal soul, that 
it is a false and misleading conception to view these " com- 
panions of men" as a mere ideal. 

An ideal is nothing if not expressed in personality. 
Subjectively every ideal is the ideal of "some one," an 
ideal of a conscious, personal, and living entity. Objec- 
tively every ideal must be embodied in "some one": and 
must be a standard, a measure, a rhythm, of various ener- 
gies synthesized in a living soul. This is really the crux 
of 'the whole matter. Vaguely and obscurely do we all 
feel the pressure of these deep and secret impulses. Pro- 
foundly do we feel that these mysterious "ideas," which 
give life its dramatic intensity, are part of the depths of 
our own soul and part of the depths of the souls of the 
immortals. And yet though they are so essentially part 



126 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of us and part of the universe, they remain vague, ob- 
scure, contradictory, confused, inchoate; only gradually 
assuming coherent substance and form as the "rapport" 
between man and his invisible companions grows clearer 
and clearer. 

We are confronted at this point by one of the most 
difficult of all dilemmas. If by reason of the fact that 
we are driven to regard personality as the most real thing 
in the universe we are compelled toward the act of faith 
which recognizes one side of the eternal duality of things 
as embodied in actual living souls, how is it that we are 
not equally compelled to a similar act of faith in relation 
to the other side of this duality? In simpler words, how 
is it that while we are compelled to an act of faith with 
regard to the existence of powers which embody the spirit 
of love, we are not compelled to an act of faith with re- 
gard to the existence of powers which embody the spirit 
of malice? 

How is it that while we have a right to regard the ideas 
of truth, beauty, goodness as objectively embodied in liv- 
ing personalities we have no right to regard the ideas of 
falseness, hideousness, evil and malice, as objectively em- 
bodied in living personalities? To answer this question 
it is necessary to define more clearly the essential duality 
which we discover as the secret of the universe. 

One side of this duality is the creative power of life, 
the other side is the resistant power which repels life. 
The emotion of love is the motive-force of the power of 
creation, a force which we have to recognize as containing 
in itself the power of destruction ; for destruction is neces- 
sary to creation and is inspired by the creative energy. 

The other side of the eternal duality is not a destructive 
force, but a resistant force. That is why it is necessary 
to define the opposite of love, not as hate — but as malice, 
which is a resistant thing. Thus it becomes clear why it 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 127 

is that we are not driven by the necessity of the situation 
to any act of faith with regard to the existence of living 
souls which embody evil and malice. We are not com- 
pelled towards this act of faith because the nature of the 
11 other side" of the eternal duality is such that it cannot 
be embodied, in any complete or objective way, in a living 
personality. It can and it does appear in every personal- 
ity that has ever existed. We are compelled to assume 
that it exists, though in a state of suppression, even in the 
souls of the immortals. If it did not exist, in some form 
or other, in the souls of the immortals, the ideas of truth, 
beauty, and goodness would be absolute in them, and the 
life of the universe would cease. 

For the nature of this eternal duality is such that the 
life of the universe depends upon this unending struggle 
between what creates and what resists creation. The 
power that creates must be regarded as embodied in per- 
sonality, for creation always implies personality. But 
the power that resists creation — though present in every 
living soul — cannot be embodied in personality because 
personality is the highest expression of creation. 

Every soul born into life must possess the attributes of 
taste, reason, conscience and emotion. And each of these 
attributes implies this fundamental duality; being resolv- 
able into a choice between hideousness, falsehood, evil, mal- 
ice, and the opposites of these. But the soul itself, being 
a living and personal thing, can never, however deeply it 
plunges into evil, become the embodiment of evil, because 
by the mere fact of existing at all it has already defeated 
evil. 

Any individual soul may give itself up to malice rather 
than to love, and may do its utmost to resist the creative 
power of love. But one thing it cannot do. It cannot 
become the embodiment of evil, because, by merely being 
alive, it is the eternal defiance of evil. Personality is the 



128 THE COMPLEX YISION 

secret of the universe. The universe exists by reason of 
a struggle between what creates and what resists creation. 
Therefore personality exists by reason of a struggle be- 
tween what creates and what resists creation. And the 
existence of personality, however desperate the struggle 
within itself may be, is a proof that the power of life is 
stronger than the power which resists life. 

But we have to consider another and yet deeper dilemma. 
Since the existence of the universe depends upon the con- 
tinuance of this unfathomable struggle and since the abso- 
lute victory of life over death, of love over malice, of 
truth over falsehood, of beauty over hideousness and of 
nobility over ignobility, would mean that the universe 
would end, are we therefore forced to the conclusion that 
evil is necessary to the fuller manifestation of good? 

Undoubtedly we are forced to this conclusion. Not one 
of these primordial ideas, which find their synthesis in 
"the invisible companions of men," can be conceived 
without its opposite. And it is in the process of their un- 
ending struggle that the fuller realization of all of them is 
attained. And this struggle must inevitably assume a 
double character. It must assume the character of a strug- 
gle within the individual soul and of a struggle of the 
individual soul with other souls and with the universe. 
Such a struggle must be thought of as continually main- 
tained in the soul of the "invisible companions of men" 
and maintained there with a depth of dramatic intensity 
at which we can only guess. 

Only less false and dangerous than the dogma that the 
absolute victory of good over evil has already been achieved, 
is the dogma that these two eternal antagonists are in 
reality one and the same thing. They are only one and 
the same thing in the sense that neither is thinkable with- 
out the other; and in the sense that they create the uni- 
verse by their conflict. 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 129 

It is important in a matter as crucial as this matter, 
concerning "the invisible companions of men," not to ad- 
vance a step beyond our starting-point till we have appre- 
hended it from several different aspects and have gone 
over our ground again and again — even as builders of 
a bridge might test the solidity of their fabric stone by 
stone and arch by arch. By that "conscience in reason" 
which never allows us pleasantly to deceive ourselves, 
we are bound to touch, as it were with our very hands, 
every piece of stone work and every patch of cement which 
holds this desperate bridge together over the dark wa- 
ters. 

We have not, then, a right to say that every energy of 
the complex vision depends for its functioning upon the 
existence of these invisible companions. We have not a 
right to say — "if there were no such beings these energies 
could not function; but they do function; therefore there 
are such beings." What we have a right to say is simply 
this, that it is an actual experience that when two or more 
personalities come together and seek to express their 
various subjective impressions of these ultimate ideas 
there is always a tacit reference to some objective 
standard. 

This objective standard cannot be thought of apart from 
personalities capable of embodying it. For these ultimate 
ideas are only real and living when embodied in person- 
ality. Apart from personality we are unable to grasp 
them; although we must recognize that the universe itself 
is composed of the very stuff of their contention. We have 
in the first place, then, completely eliminated from our dis- 
cussion that "inscrutable mystery" behind the universe. 
In every direction we find the universe unfathomable ; and 
though our power of thought stops abruptly at a certain 
limit, we have no reason to think that the universe stops 
there; and we have every reason to think that it contin- 



130 THE COMPLEX VISION 

ues — together with the unfathomable element in our souls 
— into impenetrably receding depths. 

The universe, as we apprehend it, presents itself as a 
congeries of living souls united by some indefinable me- 
dium. These living souls are each possessed of that multi- 
form activity which I have named the complex vision. 
Among the basic energies of this vision are some which in 
their functioning imply the pre-existence of certain pri- 
mordial ideas. 

These ideas are at once the eternally receding horizon 
and the eternally receding starting-point — the unfathom- 
able past and the unfathomable future — of this procession 
of souls. The crux of the whole situation is found in the 
evasive and tantalizing problem of the real nature of these 
primordial ideas. Can "truth," can "beauty," can 
"goodness" be conceived of as existing in the universe 
apart from any individual soul? 

They are clearly not completely exhausted or totally re- 
vealed by the vision of any individual human soul or of 
any number of human souls. The sense which we all have 
when we attempt to exchange our individual feelings with 
regard to these things is that we are appealing to some 
invisible standard or pattern which already exists and of 
which we each apprehend a particular facet or aspect. 

All human intercourse depends upon this implicit as- 
sumption ; of which language is the outward proof. 

The existence of language goes a long way in itself to 
destroy that isolation of individual souls which in its ex- 
treme form would mean the impossibility of any objective 
truth or beauty or nobility. Language itself is founded 
upon that original act of faith by which we assume the 
independent existence of other souls. And the same act 
of faith which assumes the existence of other souls assumes 
also that the vision of other souls does not essentially differ 
from our own vision. 






THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 131 

Once having got as far as this, the further fact that 
these other visions do very considerably, though not essen- 
tially, differ from our own leads us by an inevitable, if 
not a logical, step to the assumption that all our different 
visions are the imperfect renderings of one vision, wherein 
the ideas of truth, beauty and nobility exist in a harmonious 
synthesis. 

There is no reason why we should think of this objective 
synthesis of truth, beauty, and goodness as absolute or 
perfect. Indeed there is every reason why we should think 
of it as imperfect and relative. But it is imperfect and 
relative only in its relation to its own dream, its own 
hope, its own prophecy, its own premonition, its own 
struggle towards a richer and fuller manifestation. In 
its relation to our broken, baffled, and subjective visions 
it is already so complete as to be relatively absolute. To 
this objective ideal of our aesthetic and emotional values, 
I have given the name "the vision of the immortals" be- 
cause we are unable to disassociate it from personality; 
and because, while the generations of man pass away, this 
vision does not pass away. 

Have I, in giving to this natural human ideal, such a 
formidable name — a name with so many bold and star- 
tling implications — been merely tempted into an alluring 
metaphorical image, or have I been driven to make use of 
this expression by reason of the intrinsic nature of life 
itself? 

I think that the latter of these two alternatives is the 
true one. The "logic" by which this conclusion is reached 
differs from the "logic" of the abstract reason in the sense 
of being the organic, dynamic, and creative "logic" of the 
complex vision itself, using the very apex-thought of its 
pyramidal activity in apprehending a mystery which is 
at once the secret of its own being and the secret of the 



132 THE COMPLEX VISION 

unfathomable universe into the depths of which it forces its 
way. 

The expression, then, "the vision of the immortals " is 
not a mere pictorial image but is the definite articulation of 
a profound reality from which there is no escape if cer- 
tain attributes of the human soul are to be trusted at all. 
We cannot get rid of this dilemma, one of those dilemmas 
which offer alternative possibilities so appallingly oppo- 
site, that the choice between them seems like a choice be- 
tween two eternities. 

Is the vision of these immortals, the existence of which 
as a standard of all philosophical discussion seems to be 
implied by the very nature of man's soul, to be regarded 
or not to be regarded as the vision of real and living per- 
sonalities ? 

In other words, to put the ease once more in its rigid 
outlines, is that objective vision of truth, beauty, and good- 
ness of which our individual subjective visions are only 
imperfect representations, the real vision of actual living 
"gods" or only the projection, upon the evasive medium 
which holds all human souls together, of such beauty and 
such truth and such goodness as these souls find that they 
possess in common? 

This is the crux of the whole human comedy. This is the 
throw of the dice between a world without hope and a 
world with hope. Philosophers are capable of treating 
this subject with quiet intellectual curiosity; but all liv- 
ing men and women — philosophers included — come, at mo- 
ments, to a pitiless and adamantine "impasse" where the 
eternal "two ways" branch off in unfathomable perspec- 
tive. 

In our normal and superficial moods we are able to find 
a plausible excuse for our struggles with ourselves, in a 
simple acceptance of the ultimate duality. 

It is enough for us, in these moods, that we have on the 






THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 133 

one hand a consciousness of "love" and on the other a con- 
sciousness of " malice. " It is enough for us, in these 
moods, that we have on the one hand a consciousness of 
truth and beauty and nobility; and on the other a con- 
sciousness of unreality, of hideousness, and of evil. But 
there come other, deeper, more desperate moods, when, 
out of intolerable and unspeakable loneliness our soul sink- 
ing back into its own depths refuses to be satisfied with a 
mere recognition of this ultimate duality. 

At these moments the soul seems to rend and tear at 
the very roots of this duality. It takes these ideas of 
beauty and truth and goodness and subjects them to a 
savage and merciless analysis. It takes the emotion of 
love and the emotion of malice and tries to force its way 
behind them. It turns upon itself, in its insane trouble, 
and seeks to get itself out of its own way and to efface 
itself, so that "something" beyond itself may flow into its 
place. 

At these moments the soul's complex vision is roused to 
a supreme pitch of rhythmic energy. The apex-thought of 
its focussed "attributes gathers itself together to pierce the 
mystery. Like a strain of indescribable music the apex- 
thought rests upon itself and brings each element of its 
being into harmony with every other. 

This ultimate harmony of the complex vision may be 
compared to a music which is so intense that it becomes 
silence. And in this "silence," wherein the apex-thought 
becomes at once a creator and a discoverer, the pain and 
distress of the struggle seems suddenly to disappear and an 
indescribable happiness flows in upon the soul. At this 
moment when this consummation is reached the soul's com- 
plex vision becomes aware that the ideas of beauty, truth 
and goodness are not mental abstractions or material quali- 
ties or evolutionary by-products, but are the very purpose 
and meaning of life. It becomes aware that the emotion 



134 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of love is not a mental abstraction or a psychological acci- 
dent or a biological necessity but the secret of the whole 
struggle and the explanation of the whole drama. 

It becomes aware that this truth, this beauty, this no- 
bility find their unity and harmony in nothing less than 
in the emotion of love. It becomes aware that these three 
primordial "ideas" are only varying facets and aspects of 
one unfathomable secret which is the activity of love. It 
becomes aware that this activity of love is the creative prin- 
ciple of life itself ; that it alone is life, and the force which 
resists it is the enemy of life. 

Such, then, is the ultimate reality grasped in its main 
outlines by the rhythmic energy of the soul's apex-thought 
when, in its desperate and savage struggle with itself, the 
complex vision reaches its consummation. And this real- 
ity, thus created and thus discovered by the apex-thought 
of the complex vision, demands and requires that very rev- 
elation, towards which we have been moving by so long a 
road. 

It requires the revelation, namely, that the emotion of 
love of which we are conscious in the depths of our being, 
as an emotion flowing through us and obsessing us, should 
be conceived of as existing in a far greater completeness in 
these silent "watchers" and "companions" whom we name 
"the immortal gods." It requires, therefore, that these 
immortal ones should be regarded as conscious and living 
"souls"; for the ultimate reach of the complex vision im- 
plies the idea of personality and cannot interpret life ex- 
cept in terms of personality. 

As I said above, there come moments in all our lives, 
when, rending and tearing at the very roots of our own 
existence, we seek to extricate ourselves from ourselves and 
to get ourselves out of the way of ourselves, as if we were 
seeking to make room for some deeper personality within 
us which is ourself and yet not ourself . This is that im- 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 135 

personal element which the aesthetic sense demands in all 
supreme works of art so that the soul may find at once its 
realization of itself and its liberation from itself. 

The ' 'watchers" and "companions" of men must there- 
fore be immortal and living "souls" existing side by side 
with our human "souls" and side by side with all other 
"souls," super-human or sub-human, which the universal 
medium of the world holds together. In arriving at this 
conclusion which seems to me to be the consummation 
vouched for and attested by the rhythmic energy of the 
complex vision, I have refused to allow any particular at- 
tribute of this vision, such as the will or the intuition or 
the conscience, to claim for its isolated discoveries any uni- 
versal assent. 

The soul's emotion of love passionately craves for the 
real existence of these "invisible companions." The soul's 
emotion of malice displays an abysmal resistance to such a 
reality. This is naturally a fact that we cannot afford to 
disregard. But in our final decision in so high and difficult 
a matter nothing can be allowed to claim an universal as- 
sent except the rhythmic activity of the soul 's apex-thought 
in its supreme moments. 

At this point in our argument it is advisable to glance 
backward over the way we have come ; because the reality 
of this "eternal vision" depends, more than has as yet been 
understood, upon our whole attitude to the mystery of per- 
sonality, and to the place of personality, as the secret of 
the world. 

The feeling which we have about the emotion of love, as 
if it were a thing pouring through us from some unfathom- 
able depth, does not imply that ''the invisible companions" 
are themselves that depth. The "invisible companions" 
are not in any sense connected with the conception of an 
"oversoul." That "depth," from which the power of 
creative love pours forth, is not the "depth" of any "over- 



136 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sour' but is the depth of our own unfathomable nature. 

The introduction of "something behind the universe,' 7 
the introduction of some "parent" or "first cause" of the 
universe, from which we have to suppose this secret of love 
as emerging, is as unnecessary as it is unbeautiful. It does 
nothing but fling the mystery one step further back with- 
out in the least elucidating it ; and in thus throwing it back 
it thins it out and cheapens it. There is nothing which 
appeals to the aesthetic sense about this hypothesis of an 
* ' oversoul ' ' from whose universal being the ideas of beauty 
and truth and goodness may be supposed to proceed. It 
is a clumsy and crude speculation, easy to be grasped by 
the superficial mind, and with an air of profundity which 
is entirely deceptive. 

So far from being a spiritual conception, this conception 
of an over-soul, existing just behind the material universe 
and pouring forth indiscriminately its "truth," "beauty," 
"nobility" and "love," is an entirely materialistic one. 
It is a clumsy and crude metaphor or analogy drawn from 
the objective world and projected into that region of sheer 
unfathomableness which lies beyond human thought. 

When the conception of the oversoul is submitted to anal- 
ysis it is found to consist of nothing else than vague images 
drawn from material sensation. We think of the world 
for instance as a vast porous sponge continually penetrated 
by a flood of water or air or vapour drawn from some hid- 
den cistern or reservoir or cosmic lake. The modern the- 
ological expression "immanent" has done harm in this 
direction. There is nothing profound about this concep- 
tion of "immanence." It is an entirely materialistic con- 
ception drawn from sense analogy. 

The same criticism applies to much of the vague specula- 
tion which is usually called "mysticism." Mysticism is 
not a spiritual attitude. It is often no more than the ex- 
pression of thwarted sex-desire directed towards the uni- 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 137 

verse instead of towards the person who has repulsed it. 
The basic motive of mysticism, although in the highest 
cases it springs from intuition, is very often only an ex- 
tension into the unknown of physiological misery or of 
physiological well-being. 

The word " spiritual" retains, by some instinctive wis- 
dom in human language, a far nobler significance than the 
word " mystical. " 

It is, so to speak, a purer word, and has succeeded, in its 
progress down the ages, in keeping itself more clear of 
physiological associations than any other human word ex- 
cept the word ''soul." It must, however, be recognized, 
when we submit the two words to analysis, that the word 
" spirit" is less free from metaphorical materialism than 
the word "soul." 

The word ' ' spirit " is a metaphorical word derived from 
the material phenomenon of breath. For the purest and 
least tangible of all natural phenomena, except perhaps 
"ether" or electricity, is obviously nothing less than the 
wind. "The wind bloweth where it listeth," and this ele- 
mentary ' 'freedom of the wind," combined with our nat- 
ural association of "breath" and "breathing" with all 
organic life, accounts for the traditional nobility of the 
word spirit. 

"Spirit" and "life" have become almost interchange- 
able terms. The modern expression "the life-force" is 
only a metaphorical confusion of the idea conveyed by the 
word "spirit" or "breath" with the idea conveyed by the 
word "consciousness" when abstracted from any particular 
conscious soul. The use of the term "spirit" as applied to 
what metaphysical idealists name "the absolute" is the 
supreme example of this metaphorical confusion. 

According to this use of the term "spirit" we have an 
arbitrary association of the ultimate fact of self-conscious- 
ness — a fact drawn from the necessity of thought — wifo. 



138 THE COMPLEX VISION 

that attenuated and etherial materialism implied in the 
words "breath" or "breathing" and in the elemental 
"freedom of the wind." The word "spiritual" is a purer 
and nobler word than the word "mystical" for the same 
reason that the word "soul" is a purer and nobler word 
than the word "spirit." 

The historic fact must, however, be recognized that in 
the evolution of human thought and in the evolution of 
philosophical systems the word "spirit" has in large meas- 
ure usurped the position that ought to belong to the word 
"soul" as the highest and purest expression of what is 
most essential and important in life. 

The history of this usurpation is itself a curious psycho- 
logical document. But I cannot help feeling that the mo- 
ment has arrived for reinstating the word "soul" in its 
rightful place and altering this false valuation. 

The word "soul" is the name given by the common con- 
sent of language to that original "monad" or concrete 
unity or living "self" which exists, according to universal 
experience, "within" the physical body and is the inde- 
scribable "subtratum" of self -consciousness and the un- 
utterable "something" which gives a real concrete perma- 
nence to what we call "personality." 

Here also we are confronted by the metaphorical danger, 
which is a danger springing from the necessity of thought 
itself; the necessity under which thought labours of being 
compelled to use sense-impressions if it is to function at all. 
But though thought cannot exist as thought without the 
use of sense-impressions it can at least concentrate its at- 
tention upon this primal necessity and be aware of it and. 
cautious of it and hypercritical in its use. It can do more 
than this. It can throw back, so to speak, the whole weight 
of the mystery and drive it so rigorously to the ultimate 
wall, that the materialistic and metaphorical element is re- 
duced to a mere gap or space or lacuna in the mind that 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 139 

only a material element can fill and yet that we cannot 
imagine being filled by any material element which we are 
able to define. 

This is precisely what we have to do with regard to that 
" vanishing-point of sensation" which is the substratum of 
the soul. The situation resolves itself into this. The high- 
est, deepest, most precious thing we know or can imagine is 
personality. Personality is and must be our ultimate syn- 
thesis, our final ideal, and the origin of all our ideals. 
Nothing can be conceived more true, more real, more spir- 
itual than personality. 

All conceptions, qualities, principles, forces, elements, 
thoughts, ideas, are things which we abstract from person- 
ality, and project into the space which surrounds us, as 
if they cou!4 be independent of the personal unity from 
which they have been taken. We are compelled by the in- 
evitable necessity of thought itself, which cannot escape 
from the world of sense-impressions, to think of personality 
as possessing for its ''substratum" " something" which 
gives it concrete reality. This "something" which is ut- 
terly indefinable, is the last gesture, so to speak, made by 
the sense- world before it vanishes away. 

This "something" which is the substratum of the soul 
and the thing which gives unity and concreteness to the 
soul is the thinnest and remotest attenuation of the world 
of sense-impression. It is far thinner and more remote 
than the sense-element in our conception of spirit. Why, it 
may be asked, can we not get rid of this "something" 
which fills that gap or lacuna in the identity of the soul 
which can only be thought of in material terms? 

We cannot get rid of it because directly we attempt to do 
so we are left with that vague idealistic abstraction upon 
our hands which we call " thought-in-the-abstract " — or 
1 ' pure thought " or " pure self-consciousness. ' ' But it may 
be asked — "Why cannot the physical body serve this nee- 



140 THE COMPLEX VISION 

essary purpose of giving personality a local and concrete 
identity?" 

First — and this is the psychological reason — it cannot do 
so because our feeling of the soul as "something within" 
our physical body is an ultimate fact of experience which 
would then remain as an experience denied and contra- 
dicted. 

Secondly — and this is the metaphysical reason — it cannot 
do so because our physical body is itself only a part of 
that objective universe of sense-impressions which the soul 
is conscious of as essentially distinct from its own inmost 
identity. 

Metaphysical idealism seems to hold that the ultimate 
monad of self-consciousness is not this personal micro- 
cosmic monad which I am conscious of as the empirical self 
or ' ' soul ' ' but an impersonal macrocosmic monad or ' l unity 
of apperception" which underlies the whole field of im- 
pressions and is unable, by reason of its inherent nature, 
to contemplate itself as an "object" at all. 

What the complex vision seems to me to disclose, is a rev- 
elation which includes at one and the same moment "the 
universal monad" and the "personal monad"; but it in- 
dicates clearly enough that the former is an abstraction 
from the latter. My thought can certainly think of the 
whole universe, including time and space, as one enormous 
mass of impressions or ideals presenting itself inside the 
circle of my mind. 

Of this mass of impressions, including time and space, 
my thought, thus abstracted from my personal soul, becomes 
the circumference. Outside my thought there is nothing at 
all. Inside my thought there is all that is. The meta- 
physical reason insists that this all-comprehensive thought 
or all-embracing consciousness cannot contemplate itself 
as an object but is compelled to remain an universal sub- 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 141 

ject whose object can only be the mass of impressions which 
it contains. 

If it is possible to speak of this "a priori" background of 
all possible perception as a " monad" at all, it is- a monad 
which certainly lacks the essential power of the individual 
monad which we know as our real self, for this latter can 
and does contemplate itself as an object. 

But as I have hinted before, the complex vision's at- 
tribute of self-consciousness projects a -second abstraction, 
which takes its place between this ultimate monad which 
is pure " subject" and our real personal self which is so 
much more than subject and object together. 

This second abstraction, "thrown off" by our pure self- 
consciousness just as the first one is "thrown off" by our 
pure reason, becomes therefore an intervening monad 
which exists midway between the monad which is pure 
"subject" — if that can be called a monad at all — and the 
actual individual soul which is the living reality of both 
these thought-projections. 

The whole question resolves itself into a critical state- 
ment of the peculiar play of thought when thought is con- 
sidered in its own inherent nature apart from concrete 
objects of thought. This original play of thought, apart 
from what it may think, can result in nothing better than 
isolated abstractions ; because thought, apart from concrete 
objects of thought, is itself nothing more than one attribute 
of the complex vision, groping about in a vacuum and find- 
ing nothing. We are, however, bound by the "conscience 
of reason," and by what might be called reason's sense of 
honour" to articulate as clearly as we can all these move- 
ments of pure thought working in the void; but we cer- 
tainly are forbidden by the original revelation of the com- 
plex vision to accept them as the starting point of our 
philosophical enquiry. And we cannot accept them as a 



142 THE COMPLEX VISION 

starting point, because the complex vision includes much 
more than self-consciousness and reason. It includes in- 
deed so much more than these, that these, when indulging 
in their isolated conjuring-tricks, seem like irrelevant and 
tiresome clowns who insist upon interrupting with their 
fantastic pedantry the great tragic-comedy wherein the 
soul of man wrestles with its fate. 

As I have already indicated, it is necessary in dealing 
with a matter as dramatic and fatal as this whole question 
of ultimate reality, to risk the annoyance of repetition. It 
is important to go over our tracks again so that no crevice 
should be left in this perilous bridge hung across the gulf. 

Reason, then, working in isolation, provides us With the 
recognition of an ultimate universal " subject" or, in meta- 
physical language, with an "a priori unity of appercep- 
tion." Simultaneously with this recognition, self -con- 
sciousness, also working in isolation, provides us with the 
recognition of an universal self-conscious "monad" or 
"cosmic self" which is not only able but is compelled to 
think of itself as its own object. 

Both these recognitions imply a consciousness which is 
outside time and space ; but while the first, the outer edge 
of thought, can only be regarded as "pure subject," the 
second can be regarded as nothing else than the whole 
universe contemplating itself as its own object. 

In the third place the complex vision, working with all 
its attributes together, provides us with the recognition of 
a personal or empirical self which is the real "I am I" of 
our integral soul. This personal self, or actual living soul, 
must be thought of as possessing some "subtratum" or 
"vanishing point of sensation" as the implication of its 
permanence and continuous identity. This "vanishing 
point of sensation, " or in other words this attenuated form 
of "matter" or "energy" or "movement," must not be 
allowed to disappear from our conception of the soul. If 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 143 

it were allowed to disappear, one of the basic attributes of 
the soul's complex vision, namely its attribute of sensation, 
would be negated and suppressed. 

Directly we regarded the "I am I" within us as in- 
dependent of such a "vanishing point of sensation" and 
as being entirely free from any, even from the most at- 
tenuated form, of what is usually called "matter," then, 
at that very moment, the complex vision's revelation would 
be falsified. Then, at that very moment, the integrity of 
the soul would dissolve away, and we should be reduced to 
a stream of sensations with nothing to give them coherence 
and unity, or to that figment of abstract self-consciousness, 
"thought-in-itself," apart from both the thing "thinking" 
and the thing "thought." The soul, therefore, must be 
conceived if we are to be true to the original revelation of 
the complex vision, as having an indefinable "something" 
as its substratum or implication of identity. And this 
something, although impossible to be analysed, must be 
regarded as existing within that mysterious medium which 
is the uniting force of the universe. The soul must, in 
fact, be thought of as possessing some sort of "spiritual 
body" which is the centre of its complex vision and which, 
therefore, expresses itself in reason, self-consciousness, will, 
sensation, instinct, intuition, memory, emotion, conscience, 
taste, and imagination. All this must necessarily imply 
that the soul is within, and not outside, time and space. 
It must further imply that although the physical body, 
which the soul uses at its will, is only one portion of the 
objective universe which confronts it, this physical body 
is more immediately connected with the soul's complex 
vision and more directly under the influence of it than any 
other portion of the external universe. 

The question then arises, can it be said that this "van- 
ishing point of sensation," this "substratum" composed 
of "something" which we are only able to define as the 



144 THE COMPLEX VISION 

limit where the ultimate attenuation of what we call " mat- 
ter" or " energy" passes into unfathomableness, this centre 
of the soul, this " spiritual body," this invisible "pyramid 
base" of the complex vision, is also, just as the physical 
body is, a definite portion of that objective universe which 
we apprehend through our senses ? 

The physical body is entirely and in all its aspects a por- 
tion of this objective universe. Is the substratum of the 
soul a portion of it also ? I think the answer to this ques- 
tion is that it is and also is not a portion of this universe. 
This "spiritual body," this "vanishing point of sensation," 
which is the principle of permanence and continuity and 
identity in the soul, is obviously the very centre and core 
of reality. Being this, it must necessarily be a portion of 
that objective world whose reality, after the reality of the 
soul itself, is the most vivid reality which we know. 

The complex vision demands and exacts the reality of 
the objective world. The whole drama of its life depends 
upon this. Without this the complex vision would not 
exist. And just as the complex vision could not exist 
without the reality of the objective world, so the objective 
world could not exist without the reality of the complex 
vision. These two depend upon one another and per- 
petually recreate one another. 

Any metaphysical system which denies the existence of 
the objective world, or uses the expression "illusion" with 
regard to it, is a system based, not upon the complex vi- 
sion in its entirety, but upon some isolated attribute of it. 
The "substratum" of the soul, then, must be a portion of 
the objective world so as to give validity, so to speak, and 
assurance that this objective world with its mysterious 
medium crowded with living bodies and inanimate objects 
is not a mere illusion. But the "substratum" of the soul 
must be something else in addition to this. Being the es- 
sential meeting-point between what we call thought on the 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 145 

one hand, and what we call ''matter" or "energy" on the 
other, the "substratum" of the soul must be a point of per- 
petual movement where the life of thought passes into the 
life of sensation. 

The "substratum" of the soul must be regarded as the 
ultimate attenuation of "matter" on the one hand, and 
on the other as perpetually passing into "mind." For 
since it is the centre-point of life it must be composed of a 
stuff woven, so to speak, out all the threads of life. That 
is to say it must be the very centre and vortex of all the 
contradictions in the universe. 

Since the "substratum" or "spiritual body" of the soul 
is the most real thing in the universe it must, in its own 
nature, partake of every kind of reality which exists in 
the universe. It must therefore be, quite definitely, a por- 
tion of the objective world existing within time and space. 
But it must also be the ultimate unity of "the life of 
thought." And since, as we have seen, it is within the 
power of reason and self -consciousness to isolate themselves 
from the other attributes of the soul and to project them- 
selves outside of space and time, it must be the perpetual 
fatality of the "substratum" of the soul to recall these 
wanderers back to the true reality of things, which does 
not lie outside of space and time but within space and 
time, and which must justify time and space as something 
very different from illusion. 

But because, within time and space, the universe is un- 
fathomable, and because, also within time and space, per- 
sonality is unfathomable, the "substratum" of the soul, 
which is the point where the known and the unknown meet, 
must be unfathomable also, and hence must sink away be- 
yond the limit of our thought and beyond the limit of our 
sensation. 

Since it does this, since it sinks away beyond the limit 
of our thought, it must be regarded as "something" whose 



146 THE COMPLEX VISION 

reality is partly known and partly unknown. Thus it is 
true to say that the "substratum" of the soul is and is not 
a portion of the objective universe. The substratum of the 
soul is, in fact, the essential and ultimate reality, where all 
that we know loses itself in all that we do not know. Be- 
cause we are compelled to admit that only one aspect of 
the "substratum" of the soul is a portion of the objective 
universe as we know it, this does not justify us in asserting 
that the "substratum" of the soul is at once within space 
and time and outside of space and time. 

Nothing is outside of space and time. This conception 
of "outside" is, as we have seen, an abstraction evoked by 
the isolated activity of the logical reason. The fact that 
only one aspect of the "substratum" of the soul — and even 
that one with the barest limit of definition — can be re- 
garded as a portion of the objective universe does not give 
the soul any advantage over the universe. For the uni- 
verse, like the soul, has also its unfathomable depths. That 
indefinable medium, for instance, which we are compelled 
to think of as making it possible that various souls should 
touch one another and communicate with one another, is 
in precisely the same position as regards any ultimate anal- 
ysis as is the soul itself. It also sinks away into unfathom- 
ableness. It also becomes a portion of that part of reality 
which we do not know. 

At this point in our enquiry it is not difficult to imagine 
some materialistic objector asking the question how we can 
conceive such a vaguely defined entity as the soul posses- 
sing such very definite attributes as those which make up 
the complex vision. 

Is it not, such an one might ask, a fantastic and ridicu- 
lous assumption to endow so obscure a thing as this "soul" 
with such very definite powers as reason, instinct, will, in- 
tuition, imagination, and the rest? Surely, such an one 
might protest, it is in the physical body that these find 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 147 

their unity? Surely, if we must have a meeting-place 
where thought and the objects of thought lose themselves 
in one another, such a meeting-place can be nothing else 
than the cells of the brain ? 

The answer to this objection seems to me quite a final 
one. The physical body cannot supply us with the true 
meeting-place between "the life of thought" and "the life 
of sensation" because the physical body does not in itself 
sink away into unfathomablenesss as does the substratum 
of the soul. The physical body can only be regarded as 
unfathomable when definitely included in the whole phys- 
ical universe. But the substratum of the soul is doubly 
unfathomable. It is unfathomable as being the quintes- 
sence or vanishing-point of "matter" or "energy," and it 
is unfathomable as being the quintessence of that personal 
self which confronts not only the objective universe but 
the physical body also as part of that universe. It is un- 
doubtedly true that this real self which is the centre of its 
own universe is bound to contemplate itself as occupying 
a definite point in space and time. 

This is one of its eternal contradictions; that it should 
be at the same time the creator of its universe and an un- 
fathomable portion of the very universe it creates. The 
answer which the philosophy of the complex vision makes 
to the materialistic questioner who points to the "little 
cells of the brain ' ' may be briefly be put thus. 

The soul functions through the physical body and 
through the cells of the brain. The soul is so closely and 
so intimately associated with the physical body that it is 
more than possible that the death of the physical body im- 
plies the annihilation of the soul. But when it comes to 
the question as to where we are to look for the essential 
self in us which is able to say "I am I" it is found to be 
much more fantastic and ridiculous to look for it in the 
"little cells of the brain" than in some obscure "some- 



148 THE COMPLEX VISION 

thing/' or "vanishing point of sensation," where mind and 
matter are fused together. That this " something " which 
is able to say ' * I am I ' ' should possess instinct, reason, will, 
intuition, conscience and the rest, may be hard to imagine. 
But that the "little cells of the brain" should possess these 
is not only hard to imagine — it is unimaginable. The mys- 
terious relation which exists between our soul and our body 
lends itself to endless speculation ; and much of this specu- 
lation tends to become far more fantastic and ridiculous 
than any analysis of the attributes of the soul. Experi- 
ment and experience alone can teach us how far the body 
is actually malleable by the soul and amenable to the 
soul's purpose. 

The arbitrary symbol which I have made use of to in- 
dicate the nature of the soul's essential reality, the image 
of a pyramidal wedge of flames, is certainly felt to be but 
a thin and rigid fancy when we consider how in the actual 
play of life the soul expresses itself through the body. 

As I have already indicated, the original revelation of 
the complex vision accepts without scruple the whole spec- 
tacle of natural life. The philosophy of the complex vision 
insists that no rationalistic necessity of pure logic gives it 
the right to reject this natural objective spectacle. The 
philosophy of the complex vision insists that this obvious, 
solid, external, so-called "materialistic" spectacle of com- 
mon life, be accepted, included and continually returned 
to. It insists that the word "illusion" be no more used 
about this spectacle. It insists that this vast unfathom- 
able universe of time and space be recognized as an ulti- 
mate reality, and that all these projected images of the 
pure reason, all these circles, cubes, squares and straight 
lines, all these "unities of apperception," universal "mon- 
ads" and the like, be recognized as by-products of the ab- 
stracting energy of human logic ^ and as entirely without 
reality when compared with this objective spectacle. My 






THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 149 

own symbolic or pictorial image of the activity of the com- 
plex vision, this pyramidal wedge or arrow-head of con- 
centrated and focussed flames, must be recognized as no 
more adequate or satisfactory than any of these. 

The complex vision, with its rhythmic apex-thought, is 
not really a "pyramid" or a "wedge of flame" any more 
than it is a circle or a cube or a square or an "a priori syn- 
thetic unity of apperception" or "an universal self-con- 
scious monad." It is the vision of a living personality, 
surrounded by an unfathomable universe. 

To keep our thoughts firmly and harmoniously fixed on 
the real objective spectacle of life and on the real sub- 
jective "soul," or personality, contemplating this spectacle, 
it is advisable to revert to the magical and mysterious as- 
sociations called up by the classical word Nature. The 
mere utterance of the word "Nature" serves to bring us 
back to the things which are essential and organic, and 
to put into their proper place of comparative unreality 
all these "unities" and circles, all these pyramids and 
"monads." "When we think of the astounding beauty and 
intricacy of the actual human body ; when we think of the 
astounding beauty and intricacy of the actual living soul 
which animates this body, and when we think of the mag- 
ical universe which surrounds them both, we are compelled 
to recognize that in the last resort Nature herself is the 
great mystery. The word "Nature" conveys a more living 
and less metaphysical connotation than the word "uni- 
verse, ' ' and may be regarded as implying more of that in- 
determined future of all living souls, which is still in the 
process of creation. 

The "universe" is a static conception. Nature is a 
dynamic conception. When we speak of Nature we think 
of the whole struggle towards a fuller life of all the living 
entities which the indefinable medium of the universe con- 
tains. Nature from this point of view becomes the whole 



150 THE COMPLEX VISION 

unfathomable spectacle, seen as something living and grow- 
ing and changing. 

The "invisible companions" of men who supply the 
pattern and standard of all human ideas, become in this 
way the immortal children of Nature. The creative energy 
of the complex vision is itself an integral portion of the cre- 
ative energy of Nature; for "Nature" is no more than the 
beautiful and classical word which recalls us to the ob- 
jective spectacle which is the ultimate revelation of the 
complex vision. Nature is the supreme artist; but the 
apex-point of her artistry is nothing less than the apex- 
point of the artistry of the immortal gods. 

The artistry of the human soul, when its rhythm is 
most harmonious and complete, implies the magical artistry 
of Nature, for "Nature" is nothing more than the whole 
objective spectacle finding its myriad creative centres of 
new life in all living souls. The value of the word Nature, 
the value of the conception of Nature, is that it reminds us 
that, held together by the indefinable medium which fills 
the universe, there are innumerable entities both sub- 
human and super-human, all of whom, in their various de- 
grees, possess living souls. 

Nature's supreme art is nothing more than the natural 
impulses of all these, as they are thus held together, and 
to "return to Nature" is nothing more than to return to 
the objective spectacle of real life, and to the objective ideal 
of real life as it is embodied in "the invisible companions." 

These "invisible companions" just because they are the 
most "natural" of all living personalities, are the supreme 
manifestation of the secret of Nature. It is because the 
objective spectacle of life, the spectacle which includes the 
stars, the planets, plants, trees, grass, moss, lichen, earth, 
birds, fish, animals, is a spectacle continually shifting and 
changing under the pressure of innumerable conscious and 
sub-conscious souls, that we find ourselves turning to these 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 151 

invisible companions whose supreme "naturalness" is the 
test and pattern of all Nature. 

And it is because our physical bodies in their magical 
mysteriousness are so much more real than any rationalistic 
symbols, such as circles, cubes, squares, wedges, pyramids, 
and the like, that when we seek to visualize the actual ap- 
pearance of these "invisible companions," it seems much 
more appropriate to image their souls as clothed, like the 
souls of plants, trees, grass, planets, animals and men, in 
some tangibleness of physical form, than in nothing but the 
insubstantial stuff of air or wind or vapour, or "spirit." 

But since all that we call "Nature" continually changes, 
passes away in dissolution and is reborn again in other 
forms ; and since no physical body is exempted from death, 
it is apparent that if the "immortals" possessed physical 
bodies such as our own, they also would be subject to this 
law along with the rest of the universe. But the genera- 
tions of mankind come and go and the "invisible com- 
panions" of men remain; therefore the "invisible com- 
panions" cannot be supposed, except pictorially and in a 
symbolic sense, to be subject to the laws which govern our 
mortal bodies. 

It is this freedom from the laws which govern the phys- 
ical body and from all the intimate and intricate relations 
which exist between our human soul and our human body, 
which makes it possible for these companions of men to re- 
main in perpetual contact with every living soul born into 
the world. The difficulty we experience in realizing the 
nearness to our individual souls of these invisible com- 
panions, is due to a false and exaggerated emphasis laid 
upon the material spectacle of nature. 

This spectacle of the objective universe is undoubtedly 
one of the ultimate realities revealed to us by the complex 
vision; but it is only one of these ultimate realities. The 
complex vision is itself another one of these; and the real 



152 THE COMPLEX VISION 

existence of the soul is implied in the activity of the com- 
plex vision. The reality of the external universe, the real- 
ity of Nature, is so closely associated with the activity of 
the soul that it is impossible to think of the one apart from 
the other. 

The soul's attribute of sensation is alone responsible for 
the greater portion of this objective spectacle; for appre- 
hended through any other senses than the ones we possess 
the whole universe would be transformed. It is only 
when the soul's essential part in the creation of Nature is 
fully realized that we see how false and exaggerated an 
emphasis we are placing upon this ''externality" when we 
permit it to hinder our recognition of the nearness of the 
immortal gods. 

The laws which govern the physical body and "the 
thousand ills that flesh is heir to" obstruct, confuse, con- 
ceal, and distort the soul and hold the gods at a distance. 
But although the brain and the senses may be tortured, 
atrophied, perverted ; and although the soul may be driven 
back into its unfathomable depths and held there as if in 
prison ; and although madness intervene between the soul 's 
vision and the world, and sleep may fling it into oblivion, 
and death may destroy it utterly ; tortured or perverted or 
atrophied or semi-conscious or unconscious, while the soul 
lives, the "invisible companions of men" remain nearer to 
it than any outward accident, chance, circumstance, fatal- 
ity or destiny, and are still the arbiters of its hope. 

Retracing once more our steps over this perilous bridge 
of ultimate thought, we may thus indicate the situation. 
Our starting-point cannot be the "a priori synthetic unity 
of apperception, ' ' because this is an abstraction of the pure 
reason, and if accepted as a real fact would contradict and 
negate all the other attributes of the soul. 

Our starting-point cannot be the universal "monad" of 
self -consciousness, because this is an abstraction of the "I 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 153 

am I" and if accepted as a real fact would negate and 
suppress every attribute of the soul except the attributes 
of self-consciousness and emotion. 

Our starting-point cannot be the objective world, con- 
sidered in its evolutionary externality, because this ex- 
ternal world depends for its very existence upon the at- 
tributes of the soul, especially upon the attribute of sen- 
sation. 

Our starting-point can therefore be nothing less than the 
complex vision, which on the one hand implies the reality 
of the soul and on the other the reality of the external 
world, and which itself is the vision of a real concrete 
personality. The individual is thus disclosed as something 
more than the universal, the microcosm as something more 
than the macrocosm, and any living personality as some- 
thing more than any conceivable absolute being. 

By an original act of faith, towards which we are helped 
by the soul's attribute of imagination, we are compelled to 
conceive of every other soul in the world as being the 
centre of a universe more or less identical in character 
with the universe of which our own soul is the centre. 
These separate universes we have to conceive as being sub- 
jective impressions of the same objective reality, the 
beauty, truth, and goodness of which are guaranteed for 
us by those "invisible companions of men" in whose 
eternal vision they find their synthesis. 

The tragedy of our life consists in the fact that it is 
only in rare exalted moments, when the rhythmic harmony 
of the complex vision is most intense and yet most calm, 
that the individual soul feels the presence of those supreme 
companions whose real and personal existence I have at- 
tempted to indicate. These ideal and yet most real com- 
panions of humanity make their presence felt by the soul 
in just the same immediate, direct and equivocal way in 
which we feel the influence of a friend or lover whose 



154 THE COMPLEX VISION 

spirit, in his bodily absence, is concentrated upon our 
spirit, even as ours is upon his. 

To the larger vision of these "invisible companions' ' we 
find ourselves consciously and sub-consciously turning 
whenever the burden of our flesh oppresses us more than 
we can bear. We are compelled to turn to them by reason 
of the profound instinct in us which recognizes that our 
ideas of truth, of beauty, and goodness are not mere sub- 
jective fancies but are actual objective realities. These 
ideas do not spring from these "companions" or find their 
origin and cause in them, any more than they spring from 
some imaginary "parent" of the universe and find their 
origin and cause in something ' ' behind life. ' ' They do not 
"spring" from anything at all; but are the very stuff and 
texture of our own unfathomable souls, just as they are 
the very stuff and texture of the unfathomable souls of the 
immortal gods. What we are conscious of, when our com- 
plex vision gathers itself together, is the fact that the in- 
evitable element of subjectivity in our individual feeling 
about these things is transcended and supplemented by an 
invisible pattern or standard or ideal in which these things 
are reconciled and fused together at a higher pitch of har- 
mony than we individually, or even in contact with one 
another, are capable of attaining. 

The vision of these "invisible companions" — absolute 
enough in relation to our own tragic relativity — is itself 
relative to its own hope, its own dream, its own prophecy, 
its own permonition. The real evolution of the world, the 
real movement of life, takes therefore a double form. It 
takes the form of an individual return to the fulness of 
ideas which have always been implicit and latent in our in- 
dividual souls. And it takes the form of a co-operative 
advance towards the fulness of ideas which are fore- 
shadowed and prophesied in the vision of these immortals ' 
companions. Thus for us, as well as for them, the eternal 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 155 

movement is at once an advance and a return. Thus for 
us, as well as for them, the eternal inspiration is at once 
a hope and a reminiscence. 

It will be seen from what I have said that this philosophy 
of the complex vision finds a place for all the nobler and 
more desperate struggles of the human race towards a 
solution of the mystery of life. It accepts fully the fact 
that the human reason playing isolated games with itself, 
is driven by its own nature to reduce "all objects of all 
thought" to the circle of one "synthetic unity" which is 
the implied "a priori" background of all actual vision. 
It accepts fully the fact that human self-consciousness, 
playing isolated games with itself, is driven by the neces- 
sity of its own nature to reduce all separate "selves" to 
one all embracing "world self" which is the universe con- 
scious of itself as the universe. 

It accepts fully the fact that we have to regard the ap- 
parent objectivity of the external universe, with its historic 
process, as an essential and unalterable aspect of reality, 
so grounded in truth that to call it an " illusion " is a 
misuse of language. But although it accepts both the ex- 
treme "materialistic" view and the extreme "idealistic" 
view as inevitable revelations of reality, it does not regard 
either of them as the true starting-point of enquiry, because 
it regards both these extremes as the result of the isolated 
play of one or the other of the complex vision's attributes. 

The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept 
as its starting-point any "synthetic unity" other than the 
synthetic unity of personality; because any other than 
this it is compelled to regard as abstracted from this by 
the isolated play of some particular attribute of the mind. 
The philosophy of the complex vision refuses to accept as 
its starting-point any attenuated materialistic hypothesis, 
such as may be indicated by the arbitrary words "life- 
force" or "energy" or "movement" or "ether" or 



156 THE COMPLEX VISION 

v "vortices" or 
"evolutionary progress," because it recognizes that all 
these hypothetical origins of life are only projected and ab- 
stracted aspects of the central reality of life, which is, and 
always must be, personality. 

But what is the relation of the philosophy of the com- 
plex vision to that modern tendency of thought which calls 
itself "pragmatism" and which also finds in personality 
its starting-point and centre? The philosophy of the 
complex vision seems to detect in the pragmatic attitude 
something which is profoundly unpleasing to its taste. Its 
own view of the art of life is that it is before everything 
else a matter of rhythm and harmony and it cannot help 
discerning in "pragmatism" something piece-meal, pell- 
mell and "hand-to-mouth." It seems conscious of a cer- 
tain outrage to its aesthetic sense in the method and the 
attitude of this philosophy. The pragmatic attitude, 
though it would be unfair to call it superficial, does not 
appeal to the philosophy of the complex vision as being one 
of the supreme, desperate struggles of the human race to 
overcome the resistance of the Sphinx. The philosophy 
of the complex vision implies the difficult attainment of an 
elaborate harmony. It regards "philosophy" as the most 
difficult of all "works of art." What it seems to be sus- 
picious of in pragmatism is a tendency to seek mediocrity 
rather than beauty, and a certain humorous opportunism 
rather than the quiet of an eternal vision. It seems to 
look in vain in "Pragmatism" for that element of the 
impossible, for that strain of Quixotic faith, in which no 
high work of art is found to be lacking. It seems unable 
to discover in the pragmatic attitude that "note of trag- 
edy ' ' which the fatality of human life demands. 

It certainly shares with the pragmatic philosophy a ten- 
dency to lay more stress upon the freedom of the will than 
is usual among philosophies. But the "will" of the com- 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 157 

plex vision moves in closer association with the aesthetic 
sense than does the "will" of pragmatism. It is perhaps 
as a matter of "taste" that pragmatism proves most un- 
satisfactory to it. It seems to be conscious of something 
in pragmatism, which, though itself perhaps not precisely 
"commercial," seems curiously well adapted to a com- 
mercial age. It is aware, in fine, that certain high and 
passionate intimations are roused to unmitigated hostility 
by the whole pragmatic attitude. And it refuses to out- 
rage these intimations for the sake of any psychological 
contentment. 

In regard to the particular kind of "truth" championed 
by pragmatists, the "truth" namely which gives one on 
the whole the greatest amount of practical efficiency, the 
philosophy of the complex vision remains unconvinced. 
The pragmatic philosophy judges the value of any ' ' truth ' ' 
by its effective application to ordinary moments. The phi- 
losophy of the complex vision judges the value of any 
"truth" by its relation to that rare and difficult harmony 
which can be obtained only in extraordinary moments. To 
the pragmatic philosopher a shrewd, efficient and healthy- 
minded person, with a good "working" religion, would 
seem the lucky one, while to the philosophy of the complex 
vision some desperate, unhappy suicidal wastrel, who by the 
grace of the immortals was allowed some high unutterable 
moment, might approach much more closely to the vision 
of those "sons of the universe" who are the pattern of 
us all. 

This comparison of the method we are endeavouring to 
follow with the method of "pragmatism" helps to throw 
a clear light upon what the complex vision reveals about 
these "ultimate ideas" in the flow of an indiscriminate 
mass of mental impression. 

To the passing fashion of modern thought there is some- 
thing stiff, scholastic, archaic, rigid, and even Byzantine, 



158 THE COMPLEX VISION 

about the words ''truth," "beauty," "goodness," thus 
pedestalled side by side. But just as with the old-fash- 
ioned word "matter" and the old-fashioned word "soul," 
we must not be misled by a mere ' ' superstition of novelty ' ' 
in these things. 

Modern psychology has not been able, and never can be 
able, to escape from the universal human experiences which 
these old-fashioned words cover; and as long as the ex- 
periences are recognized as real, it surely does not make 
much difference what iiames we give to them. It seems, in- 
deed, in a point so human and dramatic as this, far better 
to use words that have already acquired a clear traditional 
and natural connotation than to invent new words accord- 
ing to one 's own arbitrary fancy. It would not be difficult 
to invent such words. In place of "truth" one could say 
"the objective reality of things" rhythmically appre- 
hended by the complex vision. Instead of "beauty" one 
could say "the world seen under the light of a peculiar 
creative power in the soul which reveals a secret aspect of 
things otherwise concealed from us." Instead of "good- 
ness ' ' one could say ' ' the power of the conscious and living 
will, when directed towards love." And in place of 
"love" itself one could say "the projection of the essence 
of the soul upon the objective plane ; when such an essence 
is directed towards life." 

But it would be futile to continue this "fancy-work," 
of definition by an individual temperament. The general 
traditional meaning of these words is clear and unmistak- 
able; though there may be infinite minute shades of dif- 
ference between one person's interpretation of such a 
meaning and another's. "What it all really amounts to is 
this. No philosophic or scientific interpretation of life, 
which does not include the verdict of life's own most con- 
centrated moments, can possibly be adequate. 

Human nature can perfectly well philosophize about its 



THE ULTIMATE IDEAS 159 

normal stream of impressions in "cold blood," so to speak, 
and according to a method that discounts all emotional vi- 
sion. But the resultant conclusions of such philosophizing, 
with their easy-going assumption that what we call 
"beauty" and "gooodness" have no connection with what 
we call "truth," are conclusions so unsatisfying to more 
than half of our being that they carry their refutation on 
the face of them. 

To be an " interpretation of life ' ' a philosophical theory 
cannot afford to disregard the whole turbulent desperate 
dramatic content of emotional experience. It cannot dis- 
regard the fact, for instance, that certain moments of our 
lives bring to us certain reconciliations and revelations 
that change the whole perspective of our days. To "in- 
terpret life" from the material offered by the uninspired 
unconcentrated unrhythmical "average" moods of the soul 
is like trying to interpret the play of "Hamlet" from a 
version out of which every one of Hamlet's own speeches 
have been carefully removed. Or, to take a different meta- 
phor, such pseudo-psychological philosophy is like an at- 
tempt to analyse the nature of fire by a summary of the 
various sorts of fuel which have been flung into the flame. 

The act of faith by which these ultimate ideas are re- 
duced to the vision of living personalities is a legitimate 
matter for critical scepticism. But that there are such 
ultimate ideas and that life cannot be interpreted without 
considering them is not a matter for any sort of scepticism. 
It is a basic assumption, without which there could be no 
adequate philosophy at all. It is the only intelligible as- 
sumption which covers the undeniable human experience 
which gathers itself together in these traditional words. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE NATURE OF ART 

The only adequate clue to the historic mystery of that 
thing which the human race has come to call "beauty," 
and that other thing — the re-creation of this through in- 
dividual human minds — which we have come to call "art" 
— is found, if the complex vision is to be trusted at all, in 
the contact of the emotion of love with the " objective mys- 
tery," and its consequent dispersion, as the other aspects 
of the soul are brought to bear upon it, into the three 
primordial ideas of goodness, beauty, and truth. 

The reason why this one particular aspect of the soul 
which we call emotion is found to be the synthesis of what 
is discovered by all the other aspects of the soul function- 
ing together is that the nature of emotion differs radically 
from reason, conscience, will, imagination, taste, and the 
rest, in that it is not only a clarifying, directing and dis- 
criminating activity but is also — as none of these others 
are — an actual mood, or temper, or state of the soul, pos- 
sessing certain definite vibrations of energy and a certain 
sort of psychic fluidity or out-flowing which seems per- 
petually to spring up from an unfathomable depth. 

This synthetic role played by emotion in unifying the 
other activities of the complex vision and preparing the 
psychic material for the final activity of the apex-thought 
may perhaps be understood better if we think of emotion 
as being an actual outflowing of the soul itself, springing 
up from unfathomable depths. Thinking of it in this way 
we may conceive the actual size or volume of the "soul 
monad" to be increased by this centrifugal expansion. 

160 



THE NATURE OF ART 161 

By such an increase of the soul 's volume we do not mean 
an actual increase; because the depths of all souls are 
equally unfathomable when their recession inwards is con- 
sidered. By such an increase we refer to the forth-flowing 
of the soul as it manifests itself through the physical body. 
Thus our theory brings us back, as all theories must if they 
are consonant with experience, to the traditional language 
of the human race. For in ordinary language there is 
nothing strange about the expression "a great soul." 
Such an expression simply refers to the volume of the 
soul's outflowing through the body. And this outflowing is 
the fulness, more or less, of the soul's well-spring of 
emotion. 

A " great soul" is thus a soul whereof the outflowing 
emotion — on both sides of its inherent duality — is larger in 
volume as it manifests itself through the body than in 
normal cases; and a " small soul" is a soul whose volume 
of outflowing emotion is less than in normal cases. 

It must be remembered, however, when we speak of the 
outflowing emotion of the soul that we do not mean that 
there pours through the soul from some exterior source a 
stream of emotion distinct from the integral being of the 
soul itself. What we mean is that the soul itself finds it- 
self divided against itself in an eternal contradiction which 
may be compared to the positive and negative pole of 
electricity. 

This outflowing of emotion is not, therefore, the outflow- 
ing of something which emerges from the soul but is the 
outflowing, or the expansion and dilation through the body, 
or the soul itself. What we are now indicating, as to the 
less or greater degree of volume in the soul's manifestation 
through the body, is borne witness to in the curious fact 
that the bodies of persons under strong emotion — whether 
it be the emotion of love or the emotion of malice — do 
actually seem to dilate in bulk and stature. 



162 THE COMPLEX VISION 

All that we have been saying has a clear bearing upon 
the problem of the relation between the emotional aspect 
of the soul and the other aspects. The emotion of the soul 
is the outflowing of the soul itself, on one side or other of 
its inherent duality; while the other aspects of the soul — 
such as will, taste, imagination, reason, and so forth — are 
the directing, selecting, clarifying, interpreting activities 
of the soul as it flings itself upon the objective mystery. 

Thus, while it is by means of that activity of the soul 
which we call conscience that we distinguish between good 
and evil ; and by means of that activity called the aesthetic 
sense that we distinguish between beauty and hideousness ; 
and by means of that activity called reason that we dis- 
tinguish between reality and unreality; it is all the while 
from its own emotional outflowing that the soul directed 
and guided by these critical energies, creates the universe 
which becomes its own, and then discovers that the uni- 
verse which it has created is also the universe of the im- 
mortals. 

It is because this emotional duality of love and malice is 
the inherent "psychic stuff" of all living souls whether 
mortal or immortal that the soul of man comes at last to 
comprehend that those primordial ideas of goodness, beauty 
and truth, out of which the universe is half-created and 
half -discovered, draw, so to speak the sanction of their ob- 
jective reality from the eternal vision of the immortals. 

The distinction we have thus insisted upon between the 
nature of emotion and the nature of the other aspects 
of the soul makes it now clear how it is that we are com- 
pelled to regard these three primordial ideas of beauty, 
truth and goodness as finding their unity and their original 
identity in the emotion of love. 

It has been necessary to consider these ultimate move- 
ments of the soul in order that we may be in a position to 
understand the general nature of this mysterious thing we 



THE NATURE OF ART 163 

call "art," and be able to track its river-bed, so to speak, 
up to the original source. From a consideration of the fact 
that the outflowing of the soul takes the form of emotion, 
and that this emotion is at perpetual war within itself and 
is for ever contradicting itself, we arrive at our first 
axiomatic principle with regard to art, namely that art is, 
and must always be, penetrated through and through by 
the spirit of contradiction. Whatever else art may be- 
come, then, one thing we can predicate for certain with 
regard to it, namely that it springs from an eternal con- 
flict between two irreconcilable opposites. 

We are, further than this, able to define the nature of 
these opposites as the everlasting conflict between creation 
and what resists creation, or between love and malice. It 
is just here, in regard to the character of these opposites, 
that the philosophy of the complex vision differs from the 
Bergsonian philosophy of the "elan vital." 

According to Bergson's monistic system the only genuine 
reality is the flux of spirit The spirit of some primordial 
self -expansion projects what we call "matter" as its secon- 
dary manifestation and then is condemned to an unending 
and exhausting struggle with what it has projected. 

Spirit, therefore, is pure energy and movement and mat- 
ter is pure heaviness and resistance. Out of the necessity 
of this conflict emerge all those rigid logical concepts and 
mathematical formulae, of which space and time, in the 
ordinary sense of those words, are the ultimate generaliza- 
tion. 

Our criticism of this theory is that both these things — 
this "spirit" and this spirit-evoked "matter" — are them- 
selves meaningless concepts, concepts which, in spite of 
Bergson's contempt for ordinary metaphysic, are in reality 
entirely metaphysical, being in fact, like the old-fashioned 
entities whose place they occupy, nothing but empty bodi- 
less generalizations abstracted from the concrete living 



164 THE COMPLEX YISION 

reality of the soul. But quite apart from our criticism of 
the Bergsonian " spirit" and "matter" on the ground of 
their being unreal conceptions illegitimately abstracted 
from real personality we are compelled to note a second 
vivid difference between our point of view and his in re- 
gard to this matter of opposites and their contradiction. 
Bergson's monism, as we have seen, resolves itself into a 
duality which may be defined as conscious activity con- 
fronted by unconscious inertness. 

Our duality, on the contrary, which has behind it, not 
monism, but pluralism, may be defined as conscious cre- 
ation, or conscious love, confronted by conscious resistance 
to creation, or conscious inert malice. Thus while Bergson 
finds his ultimate axiomatic "data" in philosophical ab- 
stractions, we find our ultimate axiomatic "data" in the 
realities of human experiences. Bergson seeks to interpret 
human life in terms of the universe. We seek to interpret 
the universe in terms of human life. And we contend that 
we are justified in doing this since what we call "the uni- 
verse," as soon as it is submitted to analysis, turns out to 
be nothing but an act of faith according to which an im- 
mense plurality of separate personal universes find a single 
universe of inspiration and hope in the vision of the im- 
mortal gods. 

The ultimate duality revealed by the complex vision is a 
duality on both sides of which we have unfathomable 
abysses of consciousness. On the one side this conscious- 
ness is eternally creative. On the other side this conscious- 
ness is eternally malicious, in its deliberate inert resistance 
to creation. It is natural enough, therefore, that while 
Bergson's "creative evolution" resolves itself into a series 
of forward-movements which are as easy and organic as the 
growth of leaves on a tree, our advance toward the real 
future which is also a return to the ideal past, resolves 
itself in a series of supremely difficult rhythms, wherein 



THE NATURE OF ART 165 

eternally conscious "good" overcomes eternally conscious 
"evil." 

Our philosophy, therefore, may, in the strictest sense, 
be called a "human" philosophy in contra-distinction to a 
"cosmic" philosophy; or, if you please, it may be called a 
"dramatic" philosophy in contra-distinction to a "lyric" 
philosophy. From all this it will be clearly seen that it 
would be impossible for us to hypostasize a super-moral or 
sub-moral universe in complete disregard of the primordial 
conscience of the human soul. It will be equally clearly 
seen that it would be impossible for us to project a the- 
oretical universe made up of "cosmic streams of ten- 
dency," whether "spiritual" or "material," in complete 
disregard of the soul's primordial aesthetic sense. 

The logical scrupulosity and rationalistic passion which 
drive a cosmic philosopher forward, in his attempt to con- 
struct a universe in disregard of the human conscience 
and the human aesthetic sense, are themselves evidence that 
while he has suppressed in himself the first two of the three 
primordial ideas of which we speak, he has become an all-or- 
nothing slave of the last of these three ideas — namely, the 
idea of truth. He has sacrificed his conscience and his 
taste to this isolated and abstracted "truth," the quest of 
pure reason alone, and, as a result of this fanaticism, the 
real "true truth," that is to say the complete rhythmic vi- 
sion of the totality of man's nature, has been suppressed 
and destroyed. 

It must be fully admitted at this point that the fanati- 
cism of the so-called ' ' pure saint ' ' and the so-called ' ' pure 
artist" who suppress, the one for the sake of "goodness" 
and the. other for the sake of "beauty," the third great 
primordial idea which we have called ' ' truth, " is a fanati- 
cism just as one sided and just as destructive of the com- 
plete harmonious vision as those other kinds. 

That this is the case can easily be proved by recalling 



166 THE COMPLEX VISION 

how thin, how strained, how morbid, how ungracious, how 
inhuman, those so-called "saints" and "artists" become, 
when, in their neglect of reason and truth, they persist in 
following their capricious, subjective, fantastic, individual 
dreams, out of all concrete relation to the actual world we 
live in. 

"We arrive, therefore, at a point from which we are able 
to detect the true inner spirit of the nature of art; and 
what we discover may thus be stated. Art is the expres- 
sion, through the medium of an individual temperament, 
of a beauty which is one of the primordial aspects of this 
pluralistic world. The eternal duality of things implies 
that this beauty is always manifested as something in per- 
petual conflict with its opposite, namely with that antag- 
onistic aspect of the universe which we name the hideous 
or the ugly. 

This duality exists as the eternal condition of each one 
of the three primordial ideas out of which the universe is 
evoked. Each of these three ideas is only known to us 
as the result of a relative victory over its opposite. Beauty 
is known to us as a relative victory over hideousness. 
Goodness is known to us as a relative victory over evil. 
Truth is known to us as a relative victory over the false 
and the unreal. The fact that each of these ideas can 
only be known in a condition of conflict with its opposite 
and in a condition of relative victory over its opposite is 
due to the fact that all three of them are in their own 
nature only clarifying, selecting, and value-giving activi- 
ties; whereas the actual material upon which they have 
to work, as well as the energy from which they derive 
their motive-power, is nothing else but that mysterious 
out-flowing of the soul itself which we call emotion. 

For since emotion is eternally divided against itself into 
love and malice, the three primordial ideas which deal with 
this emotion are also eternally divided against themselves, 



THE NATURE OF ART 167 

into beauty and hideousness, into goodness and evil, into 
reality and unreality. And since the very existence of 
emotion depends upon the struggle between love and mal- 
ice, in the same way the very existence of our aesthetic 
sense depends upon the struggle between beauty and hid- 
eousness; and the very existence of reason depends upon 
the struggle between reality and unreality. The only love 
we can possibly have to deal with is a love which is for 
ever overcoming malice. The only beauty we can possibly 
have to deal with is a beauty which is for ever overcoming 
hideousness. 

And the same assertion must be made both with regard 
to goodness and with regard to truth. If any one of them 
absolutely overcame the other, so as completely to destroy 
it, the ebb and flow of life would at that moment cease. 

A world where all minds could apprehend all truth with- 
out any illusion or admixture of unreality, would not be 
a world at all, as we know the world. It would be the 
colourless dream of an immobile plurality of absolutes. 
As far as we are concerned it would be synonymous with 
death. Thus the ultimate nature of the world is found 
to be unfathomably dualistic. A sharp dividing line of 
irreconcilable duality intersects every living soul; and the 
secret of life turns out to be the relatively victorious strug- 
gle of personality with the thing that in itself resists its 
fuller life. 

This verdict of the complex vision is in unison with the 
natural feeling of ordinary humanity and it is also in 
unison with the supreme illuminated moments when we 
seem to apprehend the vision of the gods. When once 
we have apprehended the inherent nature of beauty, we 
are in a position to understand what the spirit of art 
must be, whose business it is to re-create this beauty in 
terms of personality. The idea of beauty itself is pro- 
foundly personal even before art touches it, since it is one 



168 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of the three primordial ideas with which every conscious 
soul sets forth. 

But it is not only personal. It is also objective and 
impersonal. For it is not only the reaction of a particular 
soul to its own universe; it is also felt, in the rare mo- 
ments when the apex-thought of the complex vision is cre- 
ating its world rhythm, to be nothing less than the vision 
of the immortals. 

Art, therefore, which is the representation in terms of 
some particular personal temperament, of that sense of 
beauty which is the inheritance of all souls born into the 
world, must be profoundly penetrated by the victorious 
struggle of the emotion of love with the emotion of malice. 
For although the human sense of the beauty of the world, 
which may be called the objective sense of the beauty of 
the world, since the vision of the immortals lies behind 
it, is the thing which art expresses, it must be remembered 
that this sense is not an actual substance or concrete en- 
tity, but is only a principle of selection or a process of 
mental reaction, in regard to life. 

The thing which may be called an actual substance is 
that out-flowing of the soul itself in centrifugal waves of 
positive and negative vibration which we have chosen to 
name by the name ' ' emotion. ' ' This may indeed be called 
an actual concrete extension of the psychic-stuff of the 
substantial soul. None of the three primordial ideas re- 
semble it in this. They are all attitudes of the soul; not 
conscious enlargements or lessenings of the very stuff of 
the soul. 

The idea of beauty is a particular reaction to the uni- 
verse. The idea of truth is a particular reaction to the 
universe. The idea of goodness is a particular act of the 
will with regard to our relation to the universe. But the 
emotion of love, in its struggle with the emotion of malice, 
is much more than this. It is the actual out-flowing of 



THE NATURE OF ART 169 

the soul itself; and it offers, as such, the very stuff and 
material out of which truth and beauty and goodness are 
distinguished and discerned. 

Some clear hints and intimations as to the nature of 
art may be arrived at from these considerations. We at 
any rate reach a general criterion, applicable to all in- 
stances, as to the presence or absence in any particular 
case of the authentic and objective "note" of true art. 
This "note" is the presence in a work of art of the de- 
cisive relative victory of love over malice. When, on the 
contrary, in any work of art, the original struggle of love 
with malice issues in a relative overcoming of love by 
malice, then such a work of art belongs, ipso facto, to an 
inferior order of excellence. 

This criterion is one of easy intuitive application, al- 
though any exact analysis of it, in a particular case, may 
be difficult and obscure. Roughly and generally expressed 
it amounts to this. In the great works of art of the 
world, wherein the subjective vision of the artist expresses 
itself in mysterious reciprocity with the objective vision of 
the immortals, there is always found a certain large "hu- 
manity." This humanity, wherein an infinite pity never 
for a moment degenerates into weak sentiment, reduces 
the co-existence of cruelty and malice to the lowest pos- 
sible minimum, consonant with the ebb and flow of life. 

Some residuum of such malice and cruelty there must 
be, even in the supremest work of art, else the eternal con- 
tradictions upon which life depends would be destroyed. 
But the emotion of love, in such works, will always be 
found to have its fingers, as it were, firmly upon the 
throat of its antagonist, so that the resultant rhythm shall 
be felt to be the ultimate rhythm of life itself, wherein the 
eternal struggle of love with malice issues in the relative 
overcoming of the latter by the former. 

It would be invidious perhaps to name, in this place, 



170 THE COMPLEX VISION 

any particular works of art in which the predominant 
element is malice rather than love. But such works of art 
exist in considerable number, and the lacerated and dis- 
torted beauty of them remains as a perpetual witness to 
what they have missed. In speaking of these inferior 
works of art the aesthetic psychologist must be on his 
guard against the confusion of such moods as the creative 
instinct of destruction or the creative instinct of simple 
sensuality with the inert malice we are considering. 

The instinct of destruction is essentially connected with 
the instinct of creation and indeed must be regarded as an 
indirect expression of that instinct ; for, as one can clearly 
understand, almost every creative undertaking implies some 
kind of destructive or at least some kind of suppressive 
or renunciant act which renders such an undertaking pos- 
sible. 

In the same way it is not difficult to see that the simple 
impulse of natural sensuality, or direct animal lust, is 
profoundly connected with the creative instinct, and is in- 
deed the expression of the creative instinct on the plane of 
purely material energy. But it must be understood, how- 
ever, that neither the will to destruction nor the will to 
sensuality are by any means always as innocent as the 
forms of them I have indicated above. 

It often happens indeed that this destructive instinct is 
profoundly penetrated by malice and derives the thrill 
of its activity from malice ; and this may easily be observed 
in certain famous but not supreme works of art. It must 
also be understood that the impulse to sensuality or lust 
is not always the direct simple animal instinct to which 
I have referred. What has come to be called " Sadism' ' 
is an instance of this aberration of an innocent impulse. 

The instinct of "sadism," or the deriving of voluptuous 
pleasure from sensual cruelty, has its origin in the legiti- 
mate association of the impulse to destroy with the impulse 



THE NATURE OF ART 171 

to create, as these things are inseparably linked together 
in the normal "possession" of a woman by a man. In 
such "possession" the active masculine principle has to 
exercise a certain minimum of destruction with a view to 
a certain maximum of creation ; and the normal resistance 
of the female is the mental corollary of this. 

The normal resistance of the artist's medium to the 
activity of his energy is a sort of aesthetic parallel to this 
situation; and it is easy to see how, in the creation of a 
work of art, this aesthetic overcoming of resistance may 
get itself mentally associated with the parallel sensation 
experienced on the sensual plane. The point we have to 
make is this: that while in normal cases the impulse to 
sensuality is perfectly direct, innocent, animal, and earth- 
born; in other cases it becomes vitiated by the presence 
in it of a larger amount of destructive energy than can 
be accounted for by the original necessity. 

Thus in a great many quite famous works of art there 
will be found an element of sadism. But it will always 
remain that in the supreme works of art this sadistic ele- 
ment has been overcome and transformed by the pressure 
upon it of the emotion of love. There exists, however, 
other instances, when the work of art in question is obvi- 
ously inferior, in which we are confronted by something 
much more evil than the mere presence of the sadistic 
impulse. What I refer to is a very subtle and complicated 
mood wherein the simple sadistic impulse to derive sensual 
pleasure from the contemplation of cruelty has been seized 
upon and taken possession of by the emotion of malice. 

The complicated mood resulting from this association 
of sadistic cruelty with inert malice is perhaps the most 
powerful engine of evil that exists in the world; although 
a pure unmitigated condition of unscnsualized, unimpas- 
sioned, motiveless malice is, in its inmost self, more essen- 
tially and profoundly evil. For while the energy of sad- 



172 THE COMPLEX VISION 

ism renders the actual destructive power of malice much 
more formidable, we must remember that what really con- 
stitutes the essence of evil is never the energy of destruc- 
tion but always the malicious inertness of resistance to 
creation. We have thus arrived at some measure of in- 
sight as to the nature of art and we find that whatever 
else it may be it must be penetrated through and through 
by the overcoming of malice by love. It must, in other 
words, have the actual out-flowing of the soul as the in- 
strument of its expression and as the psycho-material me- 
dium with which it inscribes its vision upon the objective 
mystery that confronts it. 

We have at least arrived at this point in our search for 
a definite criterion : that when in any work of art a vein of 
excessive cruelty or, worse still, a vein of sneering and 
vindictive malice, dominates the emotional atmosphere, 
such a work of art, however admirable it may be in other 
respects, falls below the level of the most excellent. The 
relation between the idea of beauty as expressed by the 
aesthetic sense and those other ideas, namely of truth and 
goodness, which complete the circle of human vision, is a 
relation which may be suggested thus. 

Since all three of these primordial ideas are unified by 
the emotion of love it is clear that the emotion of love 
is the element in which each of them severally moves. 
And since it is impossible that love should be antagonistic 
to itself we must conclude that the love which is the ele- 
ment or substratum of beauty is the same love that is the 
element or substratum of goodness and truth. And since 
all these three elements are in reality one element, which 
is indeed nothing less than the dominant out-flowing of 
the soul itself, it follows that those portions of the soul's 
out-flowing which have been directed by reason and by 
conscience, which we call the idea of truth and the idea 



THE NATURE OF ART 173 

of goodness, must have an ultimate identity with that por- 
tion of the soul's out-flowing which has been directed by 
the aesthetic sense and which we call the idea of beauty. 

This identity between truth and goodness on the one 
hand and beauty on the other cannot be regarded as an 
absolute identity. The idea of truth continues to repre- 
sent one facet of the universe, the idea of goodness another, 
and the idea of beauty another or a third. What we mean 
by the use of the term "identity" is simply this: that 
the universe revealed by each one of these three ideas is 
the same universe as is revealed by the others, and the emo- 
tional out-flowing of the individual soul, which reveals each 
of these separate facets or aspects of the universe, is the 
same in each of the three ideas which govern its direc- 
tion. 

It is, however, only at their supreme point, when they 
are fused together by the apex-thought of the complex 
vision, that the activity of these separate ideas is found 
to be in complete harmony. Short of this extreme limit 
they tend to deviate from each other and to utter con- 
tradictory oracles. We may therefore lay it down as an 
unalterable law of their activity that when any one of 
these ideas contradicts another it does so because of a 
weakness and imperfection in its own intensity or in the 
intensity of the idea it contradicts. 

Thus if an idea of goodness is found irreconcilable with 
an idea of beauty, something is wrong with one or the other 
of these ideas, or perhaps with both of them. And we are 
not only able to say that something is wrong with such 
ideas when they contradict one another, we are able to 
predicate with certainty as to what precisely is wrong. 
For the "something wrong" which leads to this contradic- 
tion, the "something wrong" which stands in the way of 
the rhythmic activity of the soul's apex-thought, will in- 



174 THE COMPLEX VISION 

variably be found to be a weakening of the out-flowing of 
the emotion of love in one or other or perhaps all three 
of the implicated ideas. 

For the out-flowing of the soul's emotion is not only the 
life of the root of this "tree of knowledge"; it is also the 
life of the sap of the uttermost branches; it is the force 
that makes the fragrance of each topmost leaf mingle with 
that of all the rest, in that unified breath of the whole tree 
which loses itself in the air. 

Thus we arrive at our final conclusion as to the nature 
of art. And when we apply our criterion to any of the 
supreme works of art of the world we find it does not fail 
us. The figure of Christ, for instance, remains the su- 
preme incarnation of the idea of goodness in the world; 
and few will deny that the figure of Christ represents not 
only the idea of goodness but the ideas of truth and beauty 
also. If one contemplates many another famous "good 
man" of history, such as easily may be called to mind, 
one is at once conscious that the "goodness" of these 
admirable persons is a thing not altogether pleasing to the 
aesthetic taste, and a thing which in some curious way 
seems to obscure our vision of the real truth of life. 

A great work of art, such as Leonardo's "Virgin of the 
Rocks," or Dostoievsky's "Idiot," is intuitively recognized 
as being not only entirely satisfying to the aesthetic sense 
but also entirely satisfying to our craving for truth and 
our longing for the inmost secret of goodness. Every great 
work of art is the concentrated essence of a man's ultimate 
reaction to the universe. It has an undertone of immense 
tragedy; but in the depths of this tragedy there is no de- 
spair, because an infinite pity accompanies the infinite sor- 
row, and in such pity love finds itself stronger than fate. 
No work of art, however appealing or magical, can carry 
the full weight of what it means to be an inheritor of 
human tradition, of what it means to be a living soul, 



THE NATURE OF ART 175 

until it has arrived at that rhythm of the apex-thought 
which is a fusion of what we call the "good" with what we 
call the "beautiful" and the "true." 

It is only when our notion of what is good and what is 
true falls short of the austere demands of the aesthetic 
sense that a certain uneasiness and suspicion enters into 
a discussion of this kind. And such an uneasiness is jus- 
tified by reason of the fact that the popular notion both 
of goodness and truth does so often fall lamentably short 
of such demands. The moral conscience of average hu- 
manity is a thing of such dull sensibility, of such narrow 
and limited vision, that it is inevitable that its "goodness" 
should clash with so exacting a censor as the aesthetic sense. 

The rational conscience of average humanity is a thing 
of such dense and rigid and unimaginative vision that it 
is inevitable that its "truth" should clash with the secrets 
revealed by the aesthetic sense. The cause, why the 
aesthetic sense seems to come on the scene with an appara- 
tus of valuation so much more advanced and refined than 
that possessed by the conscience or by the reason, is that 
both conscience and reason are continually being applied 
to action, to conduct, to the manipulation of practical af- 
fairs, and are bound in this commerce with superficial cir- 
cumstance to grow a little blunt and gross and to lose 
something of their fine edge. 

Conscience and reason, in the hurly-burly and pell-mell 
of life, are driven to compromise, to half-measures, to the 
second-best. 

Conscience is compelled to be satisfied with something 
less than its own rigid demands. Reason is compelled to 
accept something less than its own rigid demands. Both 
of these things tend to become, under the pressure of the 
play of circumstance, pragmatical, time-serving, and op- 
portunist. But the aesthetic sense, although in itself it 
has always room for infinite growth, is in its inherent 



176 THE COMPLEX VISION 

nature unable to compromise ; unable to bend this way and 
that; unable to dally with half -measures. 

Any action, in a world of this kind, necessarily implies 
compromise; and since goodness is so largely a matter of 
action, goodness is necessarily penetrated by a spirit of 
compromise. Indeed it may be said that a certain meas- 
ure of common-sense is of the very essence of goodness. 
But what has common-sense to do with art? Common- 
sense has never been able, and never will be able, to under- 
stand even the rudiments of art. For art is the half-dis- 
covery of something that must always seem an impossibil- 
ity to common-sense; and it is the half -creation of some- 
thing that must always render common-sense irrelevant and 
unimportant. Truth, again, in a world of so infinite a 
complication, must frequently have to remain an open 
question, a suspended judgment, an antinomy of oppo- 
sites. The agnostic attitude — as, for instance, in the mat- 
ter of the immortality of the soul — may in certain cases 
come to be the ultimate gesture of what we call the truth. 

But with the aesthetic sense there can never be any sus- 
pension of judgment, never any open question, never any 
antinomy of opposites, never the least shadow of the prag- 
matic, or "working" test. It is therefore natural enough 
that when persons possessed of any degree of cultivated 
taste hear other persons speak of "goodness" or "truth" 
they grow distrustful and suspicious, they feel uneasy and 
very much on guard. For they know well that the con- 
science of the ordinary person is but a blunt and clumsy 
instrument, quite as likely to distort and pervert the essen- 
tial spirit of "goodness" as to reveal it, and they know 
well that the "truth" of the ordinary person's reason is 
a sorry compound of logical rigidity and practical oppor- 
tunism; with but small space left in it for the vision of 
imagination. 

It is because of their primary importance in the sphere 



THE NATURE OF ART 177 

of practical action that the conscience and the reason have 
been developed out of all proportion to the aesthetic sense. 
And it is because the deplorable environment of our pres- 
ent commercial system has emphasized action and conduct, 
out of all proportion to contemplation and insight, that it 
is so difficult to restore the balance. The tyranny of ma- 
chinery has done untold evil in increasing this lack of 
proportion; because machinery, by placing an unmalleable 
and inflexible material — a material that refuses to be hu- 
manized — between man's fingers and the actual element he 
works in, has interrupted that instinctive aesthetic move- 
ment of the human hands, which, even in the midst of the 
most utter clumsiness and grossness, can never fail to in- 
troduce some touch of beauty into what it creates. 

We have thus arrived at a definite point of view from 
which we are able to observe the actual play of man's 
aesthetic sense as, in its mysterious fusion with the energy 
of reason and conscience, it interprets the pervading beauty 
of the system of things, according to the temperament of 
the individual. It remains to note how in the supreme 
works of art this human temperamental vision is caught 
up and transcended in the high objectivity of a greater 
and more universal vision ; a vision which is still personal, 
because everything true and beautiful in the universe is 
personal, but which, by the rhythm of the apex-thought, 
has attained a sort of impersonal personality or, in other 
words, has been brought into harmony with the vision of 
the immortals. 

The material upon which the artist works is that original 
"objective mystery," confronting every individual soul, 
out of which every individual soul creates its universe. 
The medium by means of which the artist works is that 
out-flowing of the very substance of the soul itself which 
we name by the name of emotion. This actual passing of 
the substantial substance of the soul into whatever form 



178 THE COMPLEX VISION 

or shape of objective mystery the soul's vision has half- 
discovered and half -created is the true secret of what hap- 
pens both in the case of the original creation of the artist 
and in case of the reciprocal re-creation of the person 
enjoying the work of art. 

For Benedetto Croce, the Italian philosopher, is surely 
right when he asserts that no one can enter into the true 
spirit of a work of art without exercising upon it some- 
thing of the same creative impulse as that by the power 
of which it originally came into existence. In the con- 
templation of a statue or a picture or a piece of bric-a-brac, 
in the enjoyment of a poem or an exquisite passage of prose, 
just as much as in the hearing of music, the soul of the 
recipient is projected beyond its normal limitation in the 
same way as the soul of the creator was projected beyond 
its normal limitation. 

The soul which thus gives itself up to Beauty is actually 
extended in a living ecstasy of vibration until it flows into, 
and through, and around, the thing it loves. But even 
this is an inadequate expression of what happens ; for this 
out-flowing of the soul is the very force and energy which 
actually is engaged in re-creating this thing out of what 
at present I confine myself to calling the " objective mys- 
tery." 

The emotion of the soul plays therefore a double part. 
It half-discovers and half-creates the pervading beauty of 
things; and it also loses itself in receptive ecstasy, in em- 
bracing what it has half -created and half-found. 

"We have now reached a point from which we are able to 
advance yet another step. 

Since what we call beauty is the evocation of these two 
confronted existences, the existing thing which we call the 
soul and the existing thing which we call the objective 
mystery, it follows that there resides, as a potentiality, 
in the nature of the objective mystery, the capacity for 



THE NATURE OF ART 179 

being converted into Beauty at the touch of the soul. 
There is thus a three-fold complication of reality in this 
thing we call the beauty of the universe. 

There is the individual, human, subjective reality of it, 
dependent upon the temperament of the observer. There 
is the universal potential reality of it, existing in the ob- 
jective mystery. And finally there is the ideal reality of 
it, objective and absolute as far as we are concerned, in 
the vision that I have called "the vision of the immortals. " 
If it be asked why, in all these ultimate problems, it is 
necessary to introduce the vision of the immortals, my an- 
swer is that the highest human experience demands and 
requires it. 

At those rare moments when the "apex-thought" reaches 
its rhythmic consummation the soul is conscious that its 
subjective vision of Truth and Beauty merges itself and 
loses itself in an objective vision which carries the "im- 
primatur" of eternity. This is a definite universal expe- 
rience which few introspective minds will dare to deny. 

But since, as we have already proved, the ultimate real- 
ity of things is personality, or, to be more exact, is per- 
sonality, confronting the objective mystery, it is clear that 
if the subjective vision of the soul is to correspond with 
an objective reality outside the soul, that objective reality 
outside the soul must itself be the vision of personality. 
It may be asked, at this point, why it is that the potential- 
ity or the capacity for being turned into beauty at the 
touch of the soul, which resides in the objective mystery 
is not enough to explain this recognition by the soul of an 
eternal objective validity in its ultimate ideas. 

It is not enough to explain it, because this potentiality 
remains entirely unrecognized until it is touched by per- 
sonality, and it is therefore quite as much a potentiality 
of inferior beauty, inadequate truth, and second-rate good- 
ness, as it is a potentiality of the rarest of these things. 



180 THE COMPLEX VISION 

The objective mystery by itself cannot explain the soul's 
experience of an eternal validity in its deepest ideas be- 
cause the objective mystery in its role of pure potentiality 
is capable of being moulded into the form of any ideas, 
whether deep or shallow. Thus our proof of the real 
existence of "the vision of the immortals" depends upon 
two facts. 

It depends upon the fact that the soul experiences an 
intuitive assurance of objective reality in its ideas. And 
it depends upon the fact that there is no other reality in 
the world, with any definite form or outline, except the 
reality of personality. For an idea to be eternal, there- 
fore, it must be the idea of a personality, or of many per- 
sonalities, which themselves are eternal ; and since we have 
no evidence that the human soul is eternal and does not 
perish with the body we are compelled to assume that 
somewhere in the universe there must exist beings whose 
personality is able to resist death and whose vision is an 
immortal vision. 

It might be objected at this point, by such as follow the 
philosophy of Epicurus, that, even though such beings 
exist, we have no right to assume that they have any regard 
for us. My answer to this is that in such moments as I 
have attempted to describe, when the rhythmic activity 
of the soul is at its highest, we become directly and in- 
tuitively conscious of an immense unutterable harmony 
pervading all forms of life, whether mortal or immortal; 
a harmony which could not be felt if there were not some 
mysterious link binding all living souls together. 

We become aware at such moments that not only are 
all living souls thus bound together but that all are bound 
together by the fact that the ideal vision of them all is 
one and the same. This is not only my answer to such 
as maintain that though there may be Beings in the sys- 
tem of things superior to man, such Beings have no neces- 



THE NATURE OF ART 181 

sary connection with man; it is also my answer to the 
question as to how, considering the capricious subjectivity 
of our human vision, we can be assured that the ideal 
vision of the immortals does not vary in the same way 
among themselves. We are assured against both these 
possibilities; against the possibility of the immortals be- 
ing indifferent to humanity, and against the possibility of 
the immortals being divided among themselves, by the fact 
that, according to the very basic revelation of the complex 
vision, wherever there is a living soul, that living soul is 
dependent for its continued existence upon the overcoming 
of malice by love. 

This duality is so much the essence of what we call per- 
sonality that we cannot conceive of personality without it. 
If, therefore, the immortals are possessed of personality 
they must be subject to this duality; and the fact that 
they are subject to it puts them necessarily in at least a 
potential " rapport' ' with all other living souls, since the 
essence of every living soul is to be found in the same un- 
fathomable struggle. 

But granting that there are superior Beings, worthy to 
be called Gods, who in their essential nature resemble hu- 
manity, how can we be assured that there is any contact 
between them and humanity? We are assured of this in 
the intuitive revelation of a most definite human expe- 
rience, an experience which few philosophers have been 
sceptical enough to deny, although their explanations of 
it may have been different from mine. 

William James, for instance, whose psychological inves- 
tigations into the phenomena of religious feeling are so 
thorough and original, describes the sense we have of the 
presence of these unseen Powers in a very interesting and 
curious way. He points out that the feeling we experience 
at such moments is that there exists below the level of our 
ordinary consciousness a deep and limitless reservoir or 



182 THE COMPLEX VISION 

cistern containing "more" of the same stream of spiritual 
emotion which we are conscious of as being our very in- 
most self or soul of our soul. 

On the waves of this subconscious ocean of deeper life 
we are, so to speak, able to ''ride"; if once, in a sudden 
revolution of absolute humility, we can give ourselves up 
to it. 

It is needless to indicate how the Ideas of Plato, the 
"subspecie aeternitatis ,, of Spinoza, the "Liberation" 
from "the Will" of Schopenhauer, the "Beatific Vision" 
of the Catholic saints are all analogues and parallels, ex- 
pressed under different symbols, of the same universal 
feeling. The difference between these philosophic state- 
ments of the situation and mine, is that, whereas these are 
content, with the doubtful exception of Plato, to eliminate 
from this subconscious "more" of what is "best" in our 
own soul, every trace and element of personality, I am 
unable to escape from the conviction that compared with 
personality no power in the universe, whether it be called 
"Idea" or "Substance" or a "Will to annihilate Will" 
or "Life Force" or "Stream of consciousness" or any 
other name, is worthy to be regarded as the cause and 
origin of that intimation of "something more" by which 
our soul comes into contact with the secret of the system 
of things. 

To assume that the vision of unutterable truth which is 
reached in the supreme works of art is anything less than 
the vision of super-human Personality is to assume that 
something other than Perapity is the secret of life.. And 
how can man, who feels so profoundly conscious that his 
own personal "I am I" is the inmost essence of his being, 
when it comes to the question of the cause of his sensa- 
tion of "riding on the waves" of this something "more," 
be content to find the cause in mere abstractions from per- 



THE NATURE OF ART 183 

sonality, such as " streams of consciousness" or "life- 
force" or "Absolute Substance"? 

What we knoiv for certain, in this strange imbroglio, is 
that what we call Beauty is a complex of two mysteries, 
the mystery of our own "I am I" and the mystery of 
the "objective something" which this "I am I" confronts. 
And if, as is the case, our most intense and passionate ex- 
perience, when the rhythm of our nature is at the fullest, 
is the intuition of some world-deep authority or sanction 
giving an eternal validity to our ideas, this authority or 
sanction cannot be interpreted in mere metaphors or 
similes abstracted from personality, or in any material 
substance without a mind, or in any "stream of thought" 
without a thinker ; but can only be interpreted in terms of 
what alone we have an inside consciousness of, namely in 
terms of personality itself. 

To some temperaments it might seem as though this re- 
duction of the immense unfathomable universe to a con- 
geries of living souls were a strangling limitation. There 
are certain human temperaments, and my own is one of 
them, whose aesthetic sense demands the existence of vast 
interminable spaces of air, of water, of earth, of fire, or 
even of blank emptiness. To such a temperament it might 
seem as though to be jostled throughout eternity by other 
living souls were to be shut up in an unescapable prison. 
And when to this unending population of fellow-denizens 
of space we add this doctrine that our deepest ideas of 
Beauty remain subjective and ephemeral until they have 
received the "imprimatur" of some mysterious super- 
human Being or Beings, such rebellious temperaments as 
I am speaking of might conceivably cry aloud for the 
Psalmist's "wings of a dove." 

But the aspect of things which I have just suggested is 
after all only a superficial aspect of the situation. Those 



184 THE COMPLEX VISION 

hollow spaces of unplumbed darkness, those gulfs filled 
with primordial nothingness, those caverns of midnight 
where the hoary chemistry of matter swirls and ferments 
in eternal formlessness; these indeed are taken away from 
us. But as I have indicated again and again, no move- 
ment of human logic, no energy of human reason, can de- 
stroy the unfathomableness of Nature. The immense spec- 
tacle of the material universe, with its perpetually reced- 
ing background of objective mystery, is a thing that cannot 
be destroyed. Those among us who reluct at every human 
explanation of this panorama of shadows, are only too 
easily able to "flee away and be at rest" in the bottomless 
gulf they crave. 

The fact that man's apex-thought reveals the presence 
of an unending procession of living souls, each of whose 
creative energy moulds this mystery to its own vision, 
does not remove the unfathomableness of the world-stuff 
whereof they mould it. As we have already seen, this 
aboriginal world-stuff, so impenetrable to all analysis, 
assumes as far as we are concerned a three-fold form. It 
assumes the form of the material element in that fusion 
of matter and consciousness which makes up the substance 
of the soul. It assumes the form of the universal medium 
which binds all souls together. And it assumes the form 
of the objective mystery which confronts the vision of all 
souls. Over these three forms of the "world-stuff" hangs 
irrevocably the great "world-curve" or "world-circle" of 
omnipresent Space, which gives the final and ultimate unity 
to all possible universes. 

The temperamental revolt, however, which I am endeav- 
ouring to describe, against our doctrine of personality, does 
not stop with a demand for de-humanized air and space. 
It has a passionate "penchant" for the projection of such 
vague imaginative images as "spirit" and "life." For- 
getful that no man has ever seen or touched this "spirit," 



THE NATURE OF ART 185 

apart from a personal soul, or this "life," apart from some 
living thing, the temperament I am thinking of loves to 
make imaginative excursions into what it supposes to be 
vast receding abysses of pure "spirit" and of impersonal 
inhuman "life." 

It gains thus a sense of liberation from the boundaries 
of its own personality and a sense of liberation from the 
boundaries of all personality. The doctrine, therefore, 
that the visible universe is a mysterious complex of many 
concentrated mortal visions, stamped, so to speak, with 
the "imprimatur" of an ideal immortal vision, is a doc- 
trine that seems to impede and oppose such a tempera- 
ment in this abysmal plunge into the ocean of existence. 
But my answer to the protest of this temperament — and 
it is an answer that has a certain measure of authority, 
since this temperament is no other than my own — is that 
this feeling of "imprisonment" is due to a superficial 
understanding of the doctrine against which it protests. 
It is superficial because it does not recognize that around, 
above, beneath, within, every form of personality that the 
"curve of space" covers, there is present the aboriginal 
"world-stuff," unfathomable and inexplicable, out of which 
all souls draw the material element of their being, in which 
all souls come into contact with one another, and from 
which all souls half -create and half -discover their personal 
universe. 

It was necessary to introduce this question of tempera- 
mental reaction just here, because in any conclusion as 
to the nature of Beauty it is above all things important 
to give complete satisfaction to every great recurrent exi- 
gency of human desire. And this desire for liberation 
from the bonds of personality is one of the profoundest 
instincts of personality. 

We have now arrived at a point of vantage from which 
it is possible to survey the outlines of our final problem j 



186 THE COMPLEX VISION 

the problem, namely as to what it really is which renders 
one object in nature more beautiful than another object, 
and one work of art more beautiful than another work of 
art. We know that in the intuitive judgment which affixes 
these relative valuations there must be the three elements 
of mortal subjective vision, of immortal objective vision, 
and of the original " world-stuff" out of which all visions 
are made. 

But upon what criteria, by what rules and standards, 
do we become aware that one tree is more beautiful than 
another tree, one landscape than another landscape, one 
poem or person or picture than another of the same kind? 
The question has already been lifted out of the sphere of 
pure subjective taste by what has been said with regard 
to the eternal Ideal vision. But are there any permanent 
laws of Beauty by which we may analyse the verdict of this 
objective vision? Or are we made aware of it, in each 
individual case, by a pure intuitive apprehension? 

I think there are such laws. But I think the "science," 
so to say, of the aesthetic judgment remains at present in 
so rudimentary a stage that we are not in a position to 
do more than indicate their general outline. The following 
principles seem, as far as I am able to lay hold upon this 
evasive problem, of more comprehensive application than 
any others. 

A thing to be beautiful must form an organic totality, 
even though in some other sense it is only a portion of a 
larger totality. 

It must carry with it the impression, illusive or other- 
wise, that it is the outward form or shape of a living per- 
sonal soul. 

It must satisfy, at least by symbolic association, the 
physical desires of the body. 

It must obey certain hidden laws of rhythm, proportion, 



THE NATURE OF ART 187 

balance, and harmony, both with regard to colour and form, 
and with regard to magical suggestiveness. 

It must answer, in some degree, the craving of the hu- 
man mind for some symbolic expression of the fatality of 
human experience. 

It must have a double effect upon us. It must arouse the 
excitement of a passion of attention, and it must quiet 
us with a sense of eternal rest. 

It must thrill us with a happiness which goes beyond the 
pleasure of a passing physical sensation. 

It must convey the impression of something unique and 
yet representative; and it must carry the mind through 
and beyond itself, to the very brink and margin of the 
ultimate objective mystery. 

It must suggest inevitableness, spontaneity, a certain 
monumental ease, and a general feeling of expansion and 
liberation. 

It must, if it belong to nature, convey that magical and 
world-deep sadness which springs from an inarticulate ap- 
peal; or, if it belong to art, that wistful loneliness which 
springs from the creation of immortality by the hands of 
mortality. 

The above principles are not offered as in any way ex- 
haustive. They are outlined as a temporary starting point 
and suggestion for the more penetrating analysis which 
the future will surely provide. And I have temporally 
excluded from them, as can be seen, all references to those 
auxiliary elements drawn from reason and conscience 
which, according to the philosophy of the complex vision, 
must be included in the body of art, if art is to be the 
final expression of human experience. 

But after gathering together all we have accumulated 
among these various paths leading to the edge of the mys- 
tery of art, what we are compelled to recognize, when we 



188 THE COMPLEX VISION 

confront the palpable thing itself, is that, in each unique 
embodiment of it, it arrests and entrances us, as with a 
sudden transformation of our entire universe. 

Out of the abysses of personality — human or super-human 
— every new original work of art draws us, by an irresistible 
magnetism, into itself, until we are compelled to become 
what it is, until we are actually transformed into its in- 
most identity. 

What hitherto has seemed to us mere refuse and litter 
and dreariness and debris — all the shards and ashes and 
flints and excrement of the margins of our universe — take 
upon themselves, as they are thus caught up and trans- 
figured, a new and ineffable meaning. 

The terrible, the ghastly, the atrocious, the abominable, 
the apparently meaningless and dead, suddenly gather 
themselves together and take on strange and monumental 
significance. 

What has hitherto seemed to us floating jetsom and blind 
wreckage, what has hitherto seemed to us mere brutal 
lumps of primeval clay tossed to and fro by the giant 
hands of chaos, what has hitherto seemed to us slabs of 
inhuman chemistry, suddenly assumes under the pressure 
of this great power out of the abyss a strange and lovely 
and terrible expressiveness. 

Deep calls to Deep; and the mysterious oceans of Per- 
sonality move and stir in a terrific reciprocity. 

The unfathomable gulfs of the eternal duality within us 
are roused to undreamed-of response in answer to this 
abysmal stirring of the powers that create the world. 

What is good in us is enlarged and heightened; what is 
evil in us is enlarged and deepened; while, under the in- 
creasing pressure of this new wave of the perilous stuff 
"of emotion," slowly, little by little, as we give ourselves 
up to the ecstasy of contemplation, the intensified "good" 
overcomes the intensified "evil." 



THE NATURE OF ART 189 

It is then that what has begun in agitation and disturb- 
ance sinks by degrees into an infinite peace; as, without 
any apparent change or confusion, the waves roll in, one 
after another, upon our human shore, and we are lifted 
up and carried out on that vast tide into the great spaces, 
beneath the morning and the evening, where the eternal 
vision awaits us with its undescribable calm. 

Let art be as bizarre, as weird, as strange, as rare, as 
fantastic, as you please, if it be true art it must spring from 
the aboriginal duality in the human soul and thus must 
remain indestructibly personal. But since the two ele- 
ments of personality wrestle together in every artist 's soul, 
the more personal a work of art becomes the more com- 
prehensive is its impersonality. 

For art, by means of the personal and the particular, 
attains the impersonal and the universal. By means of 
sinking down into the transitory and the ephemeral, by 
means of moulding chance and accident to its will, it is 
enabled to touch the eternal and the eternally fatal. 

From agitation to peace; from sound to silence; from 
creation to contemplation; from birth and death to that 
which is immortal; from movement to that which is at 
rest — such is the wayfaring of this primordial power. 

It is from the vantage-ground of this perception that we 
are able to discern how the mysterious beauty revealed in 
apparently "inhuman" arrangements of line and colour 
and light and shade is really a thing springing from the 
depths of some personal and individual vision. 

The controversy as to the superior claims of an art that 
is just "art," with an appeal entirely limited to texture 
and colour and line and pure sound, and an art that is 
imagistic, symbolic, representative, religious, philosophical, 
or prophetic, is rendered irrelevant and meaningless when 
we perceive that all art, whether it be a thing of pure line 
and colour or a thing of passionate human content, must 



190 THE COMPLEX VISION 

inevitably spring from the depths of some particular per- 
sonal vision and must inevitably attain, by stressing this 
personal element to the limit, that universal impersonality 
which is implied in the fact that every living soul is com- 
posed of the same elements. 

It may require no little subtlety of vision to detect in 
the pure beauty of line, colour, and texture that compose, 
say, some lovely piece of bric-a-brac, the hidden presence 
of that primordial duality out of which all forms of beauty 
emerge, but the metaphysical significance latent in the 
phrase "the sense of difficulty overcome" points us to- 
wards just this very interpretation. The circumstantial 
and the sexual "motifs" in art, so appealing to the mob, 
may or may not play an aesthetic part in the resultant 
rhythm. If they do, they do so because such "interest" 
and such "eroticism" were an integral portion of the orig- 
inal vision that gave unity to the work in question. If 
they do not, but are merely dragged in by the un-aesthetic 
observer, it is easy enough for the genuine virtuoso to dis- 
regard such temptation and to put "story," "message," 
"sentiment," and "sex-appeal" rigidly aside, as he seeks 
to respond to the primordial vision of an " unstoried ' ' non- 
sexual beauty springing from those deeper levels of the 
soul where "story," "sentiment," and sex have no longer 
any place. 

More dangerous, however, to art, than any popular crav- 
ing for "human interest" or for the comfort of amorous 
voluptuousness, is the unpardonable stupidity of puritan- 
ical censorship. Such censorship, in its crass impertinence, 
assumes that its miserable and hypocritical negations rep- 
resent that deep, fierce, terrible "imperative" uttered by 
the soul's primordial conscience. 

They represent nothing of the sort. 

The drastic revelations of "conscience" are, as I have 
pointed out again and again, fused and blended in their 



THE NATURE OF ART 191 

supreme moments with the equally drastic revelations of 
reason and the aesthetic sense. 

They are inevitably blended with these, because, as we 
have proved, they are all three nothing less than divergent 
aspects of the one irresistible projection of the soul itself 
which I have named ' ' creative love. ' ' 

Thus it comes about that in the great, terrible moments 
of tragic art there may be an apparent catastrophic de- 
spair, which in our normal moods seems hopeless, final, 
absolute. 

It is only when the complex rhythm of the apex-thought 
is brought to bear upon these moments of midnight that a 
strange and unutterable healing emerges from them, a 
shy, half-hinted whisper or something deeper than hope, 
a magical effluence, a " still, small voice" from beneath 
the disastrous eclipse, which not only "purges our pas- 
sions by pity and terror" but evokes an assured horizon, 
beyond truth, beyond beauty, beyond goodness, where the 
mystery of love, in its withdrawn and secret essence, trans- 
forms all things into its own likeness. 

The nature of art is thus found to be intimately asso- 
ciated with the universal essence of every personal life. 
Art is not, therefore, a thing for the "coteries" and the 
1 ' cliques ' ' ; nor is it a thing for the exclusive leisure of any 
privileged class. It is a thing springing from the eternal 
"stuff of the soul," of every conceivable soul, whether 
human, sub-human, or super-human. 

Art is nearer than "philosophy" or "morality" to the 
creative energy; because, while it is impossible to think 
of art as "philosophy" or "morality," it is inevitable 
that we should think of both of these as being themselves 
forms and manifestations of art. 

All that the will does, in gathering together its impres- 
sions of life and its reactions to life, must, even in regard 
to the most vague, shadowy, faint and obscure flicherings 



192 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of contemplation, be regarded as a kind of intimate "work 
of art," with the soul as the " artist" and the flow of life 
as the artist's material. 

Every personal soul, however " inartistic, ' ' is an artist 
in this sense; and every personal life thus considered is 
an effective or ineffective "work of art." 

The primal importance of what in the narrow and re- 
stricted sense we have come to call "art" can only be fully 
realized when we think of such "art" as concentrating 
upon a definite material medium the creative energy which 
is for ever changing the world in the process of changing 
our attitude to the world. 

The deadly enemy of art — the power that has succeeded, 
in these commercial days, in reducing art to a pastime for 
the leisured and wealthy — is the original inert malice of 
the abyss. 

This inert malice assumes, directly it comes in contact 
with practical affairs, the form of the possessive instinct. 
And the attitude towards art of the "collector" or the 
leisured "epicurean," for whom it is merely a pleasant 
sensation among other sensations, is an attitude which 
undermines the basis of its life. The very essence of art 
is that it should be a thing common to all, within the reach 
of all, expressive of the inherent and universal nature of 
all. And that this is the nature of art is proved by the 
fact that art is the personal expression of the personal 
centrifugal tendency in all living souls; an expression 
which, when it goes far enough, becomes impersonal, be- 
cause, by expressing what is common to all, it reaches the 
point where the particular becomes the universal. 

It thus becomes manifest that the true nature of art will 
only be incidentally and occasionally manifested, and 
manifested among us with great difficulty and against 
obstinate resistance, until the hour comes when, to an ex- 
tent as yet hardly imaginable, the centripetal tendency of 



THE NATURE OF ART 193 

the possessive instinct in the race shall have relinquished 
something of its malicious resistance to the out-flowing 
force which I have named "love." And this yielding of 
the centripetal power to that which we call centrifugal can 
only take place in a condition of human society where the 
idea of communism has been accepted as the ideal and, in 
some effective measure, realized in fact. 

For every work of art which exists is the rhythmic ar- 
ticulation, in terms of any medium, of some personal vision 
of life. And the more entirely "original" such a vision 
is, the more closely — such is the ultimate paradox of things 
— will it be found to approximate to a re-creation, in this 
particular medium, of that "eternal vision" wherein all 
souls have their share. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE NATURE OF LOVE 

The secret of the universe, as by slow degrees it reveals 
itself to us, turns out to be personality. When we con- 
sider, further, the form under which personality realizes 
itself, we find it to consist in the struggle of personality 
to grapple with the objective mystery. When, in a still 
further movement of analysis, we examine the nature of 
this struggle between the soul and the mystery which 
surrounds the soul, we find it complicated by the fact that 
the soul's encounter with this mystery reveals the exist- 
ence, in the depths of the soul itself, of two conflicting emo- 
tions, the emotion of love and the emotion of malice. 

The word "love" has been used so indiscriminately in 
its surprising history that it becomes necessary to eluci- 
date a little the particular meaning I give to it in connec- 
tion with this ultimate duality. A strange and grotesque 
commentary upon human life, these various contradictory 
feelings that have covered their "multitude of sins" under 
this historic name! 

The lust of the satyr, the affectionate glow of the do- 
mestic habitue, the rare exalted passion of the lover, the 
cold, clear attraction of the intellectual platonist, the will 
to possession of the sex-maniac, the will to voluptuous 
cruelty of the sex-pervert, the maternal instinct, the race- 
instinct, the instinct towards fetish-worship, the instinct 
towards art, towards nature, towards the ultimate mystery 
— all these things have been called "love" that we should 
follow them and pursue them; all these things have been 

194 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 195 

called "love" that we should avoid them and fly from 
them. 

The emotion of love in which we seem to detect the ulti- 
mate creative force is not precisely any of these things. 
Of all normal human emotions it comes nearest to passion- 
ate sympathy. But it is much more than this. The emo- 
tion of love is not a simple nor an easily denned thing. 
How should it be that, when it is one aspect of the out- 
pouring of the very stuff of the soul itself? How should 
it be that when it is the projection, into the heart of the 
objective mystery, of the soul's manifold and complicated 
essence ? 

The best definition of love is that it is the creative appre- 
hension of life, or of the objective mystery, under the form 
of an eternal vision. At first sight this definition might 
geem but a cold and intellectual account of love ; an account 
that has omitted all feeling, all passion, all ecstasy. 

But when we remember that what we call "the eternal 
vision" is nothing less than the answer of love to love, 
nothing less than the reciprocal rhythm of all souls, in 
so far as they have overcome malice, with one another and 
with the mystery which surrounds them, it will be seen 
that the thing is something in which what we call "intel- 
lect" and what we call "feeling" are both transcended. 
Love, in this sense, is an ecstasy ; but it is an ecstasy from 
which all troubling, agitating, individual exactions have 
been obliterated. It is an ecstasy completely purged of 
the possessive instinct. It is an ecstasy that brings to us 
a feeling of indescribable peace and calm. It is an ecstasy 
in which our personal self, in the fullest realization of its 
inmost identity, loses itself, even at the moment of such 
realization, in something which cannot be put into words. 

At one moment our human soul finds itself harassed by 
a thousand vexations, outraged by a thousand miseries. 
Physical pain torments it, spiritual pain torments it; and 



196. THE COMPLEX VISION 

a great darkness of thick, heavy, poisonous obscurity wraps 
it round like a grave-cloth. Then, in a sudden movement 
of the will, the soul cries aloud upon love ; and in one swift 
turn of the ultimate wheel, the whole situation is trans- 
formed. 

The physical pain seems to have no longer any hold 
upon the soul. The mental misery and trouble falls away 
from it like an unstrapped load. And a deep, cool, tide — 
calm and still and full of infinite murmurs — rolls up 
around it, and pours through it, and brings it healing and 
peace. The emotion of love in which personality, and 
therefore in which the universe, finds the secret of its life, 
has not the remotest connection with sex. Sexual passion 
has its place in the world'; but it is only when sexual pas- 
sion merges itself in the sort of love we are now consider- 
ing that it becomes an instrument of real clairvoyance. 

There is a savage instinct of cruel and searching illumina- 
tion in sexual passion, but such an instinct is directed to- 
wards death rather than towards life, because it is domi- 
nated, through all its masks and disguises, by the passion 
of possession. 

Like the passion of hate, to which it is so closely allied, 
sexual passion has a kind of furious intensity which is able 
to reveal many deep levels of human obliquity. But one 
thing it cannot reveal, because of the strain of malice it 
carries with it, and that is the spring of genuine love. 
"Like unto like" is the key to the situation; and the 
deeper the clairvoyance of malice digs into the subter- 
ranean poison of life, the more poison it finds. For in 
finding poison it creates poison, and in finding malice it 
doubles malice. 

The great works of art are not motivated by the clair- 
voyance of malice; they are motivated by the clairvoyance 
of love. It is only in the inferior levels of art that mal- 
ice is the dominant note; and even there it is only effec- 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 197 

tive because, mixed with it, there is an element of de- 
structive hatred springing from some perversion of the 
sexual instinct. Whatever difficulty we may experience 
in finding words wherewith to define this emotion of love, 
there is not one of us, however sceptical and malign, who 
does not recognize it when it appears in the flesh. Mal- 
ice displays its recognition of it by a passion of furious 
hatred; but even this hatred cannot last for ever, because 
in every personality that exists there must be a hidden love 
which answers to the appeal of love. 

The feeling which love has, at its supreme moments, is 
the feeling of " unity in difference " with all forms of life. 
Love may concentrate itself with a special concentration 
upon one person or upon more than one ; but what it does 
when it so concentrates itself is not to make an alliance 
of "attack and defence' ' with the person it loves, but to 
flow outwards, through them and beyond them, until it 
includes every living thing. Let it not, however, be for a 
moment supposed that the emotion of love resembles that 
vague "emotion of humanity" which is able to satisfy 
itself in its own remote sensationalism without any con- 
tact with the baffling and difficult mystery of real flesh and 
blood. 

The emotion of love holds firmly and tightly to the 
pieces and fragments of humanity which destiny has 
thrown in its way. It does not ask that these should be 
different from what they are, except in so far as love in- 
evitably makes them different. It accepts them as its 
"universe," even as it accepts, without ascetic dismay, the 
weakness of the particular "form of humanity" in which 
it finds itself "incarnated." 

By gradual degrees it subdues these weaknesses of the 
flesh, whether in its own "form" or in the "form" of 
others; but it is quite contrary to the emotion of love to 
react against such weaknesses of the flesh with austere or 



198 THE COMPLEX VISION 

cruel contempt. It is humorously indulgent to them in the 
form of its own individual "incarnation" and it is ten- 
derly indulgent to them in the form of the " incarnation' ' 
of other souls. 

The emotion of love does not shrink back into itself 
because in the confused pell-mell of human life the alien 
souls which destiny has chosen for its companions do not 
satisfy, in this detail or the other detail, the desire of its 
heart. The emotion of love is always centrifugal, always 
out-flowing. It concentrates itself upon this person or 
the other person, as the unaccountable attractions of like- 
ness and difference dictate or as destiny dictates; but 
the deepest loyalty of love is always directed to the eternal 
vision; for in the eternal vision it not only becomes one 
with all living souls but it also becomes one — though this 
is a high and difficult mystery — with all the dead that 
have ever loved and with all the unborn that will ever love. 

For the apprehension of the eternal vision is at once 
the supreme creation and the supreme discovery of the soul 
of man ; and not of the soul of man alone, but of all souls, 
whether of beasts or plants or demi-gods or gods, who 
fill the unfathomable circle of space. 

The secret of this kind of love, when it comes to the mat- 
ter of human relationships, may perhaps best be expressed 
in those words of William Blake which imply the difficulty 
which love finds in overcoming the murderous exactions of 
the possessive instinct and the cruel clairvoyance of mal- 
ice. "And throughout all eternity, I forgive you: you 
forgive me : As our dear Redeemer said — This is the wine : 
this is the bread. ' ' 

This "forgiveness" of love does not imply that love, as 
the old saying runs, is "blind." Love sees deeper than 
malice; for malice can only recognize its own likeness in 
everything it approaches. It must be remembered too that 
this process of laying bare the faults of others is not a 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 199 

pure process of discovery. Like all other forms of appre- 
hension it is also a reproduction of itself. The situation, 
in fact, is never a static one. These * 'faults" which mal- 
ice, in its reproductive "discoveries" lays bare, are not 
fixed, immobile, dead. They are organic and psychic con- 
ditions of a living soul. They are themselves in a per- 
petual state of change, of growth, of increase, of wither- 
ing, of fading. They are affected at every moment by 
the will and by the emotion of the subject of them. They 
project themselves; they withdraw themselves. They di- 
late; they diminish. Thus it happens that at the very 
touch of this "discovering," the malice which is thus 
"discovered" dilates with immediate reciprocity to meet 
its "discoverer"; and this can occur — such is the curious 
telepathic vibration between living things — without any 
articulate act of consciousness. 

The art of psychological investigation is therefore a very 
dangerous organ of research in the hands of the malicious ; 
for it goes like a reproductive scavenger through the field 
of human consciousness increasing the evil which it is its 
purpose to collect. The apostolic definition of "charity" 
as the thing which "thinketh no evil" is hereby completely 
justified ; and the profound Goethean maxim, that the way 
to enlarge the capacities of human beings is to "assume" 
that such capacities are larger than they really are, is jus- 
tified also. 

Malice naturally assumes that the "faults" of people 
are "static," immobile, and unchanging. It assumes this 
even in the very act of increasing these faults. For the 
static and unchanging is precisely what malice desires and 
seeks to find; for death is its ideal; and, short of pure 
nothingness, death is the most static thing we know. 

Love is not blind or fooled or deluded when it waives 
aside the faults of a person and plunges into the unknown 
depths of such a person's soul. It is not blind, when, in 



200 THE COMPLEX VISION 

the energy of the creative vision, such faults subside and 
fall away and cease to exist. It is completely justified in 
its declaration that what it sees and feels in such a person 
is a hidden reservoir of unsatisfied good. It does see this ; 
it does feel this; because there arises, in answer to its 
approach, an upward-flowing wave of its own likeness ; be- 
cause in such a person's inmost soul love, after all, re- 
mains the creative impulse which is the life of that soul 
and the very substance of that soul's personality. 

The struggle between the emotion of love and the emo- 
tion of malice goes on perpetually, in the depths of life, 
below a thousand shifting masks and disguises. What we 
call the "universe" is nothing but a congeries of innumer- 
able "souls," manifested in innumerable "bodies," each 
one confronted by the objective mystery, each one sur- 
rounded by an indescribable ethereal "medium." 

"What we call the emotion of love is the outflowing of 
any one of these souls towards the body and soul of any 
other, or again, in a still wider sense, towards all bodies 
and souls covered by the unfathomable circle of space. 

I will give a concrete example of what I mean. Suppose 
a man to be seated in the yard of a house with a few 
patches of grass in front of him and the trunk of a soli- 
tary tree. The slanting sunshine, we will suppose, throws 
the shadows of the leaves of the tree and the shadows of 
the grass-blades upon a forlorn piece of trodden earth- 
mould or dusty sand which lies at his feet. Something 
about the light movement of these shadows and their deli- 
cate play upon the ground thrills him with a sudden thrill ; 
and he finds he "loves" this barren piece of earth, these 
grass-blades, and this tree. He does not only love their 
outward shape and colour. He loves the "soul" behind 
them, the "soul" that makes them what they are. He 
loves the "soul" of the grass, the "soul" of the tree, and 
that dim, mysterious, far-off "soul" of the planet, of 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 201 

whose "body" this barren patch of earth is a living por- 
tion. 

What does this "love" of his actually imply? It implies 
an outflowing of the very stuff and substance of his own 
towards the thing he loves. It implies, by a mysterious 
vibration of reciprocity, an indescribable response to his 
love from the "soul" of the tree, the plant, and the earth. 
Let an animal enter upon the scene, or a bird, or a wind- 
blown butterfly, or a flickering flight of midges or gnats, 
their small bodies illumined by the sun. These new com- 
ers he also loves; and is obscurely conscious that between 
their "souls" and his own there vibrates a strange reci- 
procity. Let a human being enter, familiar or unfamiliar, 
and if his will be set upon "love," the same phenomenon 
will repeat itself, only with a more conscious interchange. 

But what of "malice" all this time? Well! It is not 
difficult to indicate what "malice" will seek to do. Mal- 
ice will seek to find its account in some physical or mental 
annoyance produced in us by each of these living things. 
This annoyance, this jerk or jolt to our physical or mental 
well-being, will be what to ourselves we name the "fault" 
of the offending object. 

The shadows will tease us by their incessant movement. 
The tree will vex us by the swaying of its branches. The 
grass will present itself to us as an untidy intruder. The 
barren patch of earth will fill us with a profound depres- 
sion owing to its desolate lack of life and beauty. The dog 
will worry us by its fuss, its solicitation, its desire to be 
petted. The gnats or midges will stir in us an indignant 
hostility; since their tribe have been known to poison the 
blood of man. The human invader, above all; how loud 
and unpleasing his voice is! The eternal malice in the 
depths of our soul pounces upon this tendency of grass to 
be "a common weed," of gnats to bite, of dogs to bark, 
of shadows to flicker, of a man to have an evil temper, of 



202 THE COMPLEX VISION 

a woman to have an atrocious shrewishness, or an appalling 
sluttishness;.and out of these annoyances or " faults " it 
feeds its desire; it satisfies its necrophilistic lust; and it 
rouses in the grass, in the earth, in the tree, in the dog, in 
the human intruder, strange and mysterious vibrations of 
response which add to the general poison of the world. 
But the example I have selected of the activity of emotion 
may be carried further than this. All these individual 
"souls" of human, animal, vegetable, planetary embodi- 
ment, are confronted by the same objective mystery and 
surrounded by the same ethereal "medium." 

By projecting a vision poisoned by malice into the matrix 
of the objective mystery, the resultant "universe" becomes 
itself a poisoned thing, a thing penetrated by the spirit of 
evil. It is because the universe is always penerated by 
the malice of the various visions whose "universe" it is, 
that we suffer so cruelly from its ironic "diablerie." A 
universe entirely composed of the bodies and souls of beings 
whose primordial emotion is so largely made up of malice 
is naturally a malicious universe. The age-old tradition 
of the witchery and devilry of malignant Nature is a proof 
as to how deep this impression of the system of things has 
sunk. Certain great masters of fiction draw the "motive" 
of their art from this unhappy truth. 

And just as the universe is penetrated through and 
through by the malice of those whose universe it is, so we 
may suppose that the ethereal ' ' medium ' ' which surrounds 
all souls, before they have visioned their various "uni- 
verses" and found them to be one, is a thing which also 
may be affected by malice. It is an open question and 
one which, in the words of Sir Thomas Browne, "admits 
a wide solution," whether or not thjs ethereal "medium," 
which in a sense is of one stuff both with the objective mys- 
tery and with the substratum of the soul, is itself the 
"elemental body," as it were, of a living ubiquitous soul. 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 203 

If this should be the case — and it is no fantastic hypothesis 
— we are then provided with an explanation of the curious 
malignant impishness of those so-called ' ' elementals " who 
tease, with their enigmatic oracles, the minds of unwise 
dabblers in "psychic manifestations." 

But what we are concerned with noting now is that just 
as the primordial malice of all the souls it contains con- 
tinually poisons the universe, so the primordial love of all 
the souls it contains continually redeems and transforms 
the universe. In other words it is no exaggeration to say 
that the unfathomable universe is continually undergoing 
the same ebb and flow between love and malice, as are the 
souls and bodies of all the living things whereof it is com- 
posed. 

And what precisely is the attitude of love towards the 
physical body? Does it despise the physical body? Does 
its activity imply an ascetic or a puritanical attitude to- 
wards the body and the appetites of the body? The truth 
is quite the contrary of this. What the revelation of the 
complex vision indicates is that this loathing of the body, 
this revulsion against the body, this craving to escape from 
the body, is a mood which springs up out of the eternal 
malice. It is from the emotion of love in its attitude to 
the body that we arrive at the idea of the sacredness of 
the body and at the idea of what might be called "the 
eternal reality of the body." 

This idea of the eternal reality of the body springs di- 
rectly from those ideas of truth, beauty and goodness which 
are pre-existent in the universe and therefore springs di- 
rectly from that emotion of love which is the synthesis of 
these. 

The forms and shapes of stars and plants and rivers and 
hills are all realized and consummated in the form and 
shape of the human body. The magic of the elements, the 
mystery of earth and air and water and fire, are incar- 



204 THE COMPLEX VISION 

nated in this miracle of flesh and blood. In the counte- 
nance of a human child, in the countenance of a man or a 
woman, the whole unfathomable drama of life is expressed. 
The most evil of the children of men, asleep or dead, has in 
his face something more tragic and more beautiful than 
all the waters and all the land. 

Not to "love" flesh and blood, not to will the eternal 
existence of flesh and blood, is not to know "love" at all. 
To loathe flesh and blood, to will the annihilation of flesh 
and blood, is to be a victim of that original "motiveless 
malignity" which, opposes itself to the creative force. 

This insistence upon "the eternal idea of the body" does 
not necessarily limit "the idea of the body" to the idea of 
the human body; but practically it does so. And it prac- 
tically does so because the human body evidently incarnates 
the beauty and the nobility of all other forms and shapes 
and appearances which make up our existing universe. 

There may be other and different bodies in the unfathom- 
able spaces of the world ; but for those among us who are 
content to deal with the actual experiences which we have, 
the human body, summing up the magical qualities of all 
other terrestrial forms and shapes, must, as far as we are 
concerned, remain our permanent standard of truth and 
beauty. 

The substitution in art, in philosophy, and in religion, 
of other symbols, for this natural and eternal symbol of 
the human body is always a sign of a weakening of the 
creative impulse. It is a sign of a relative disintegration 
of the power of * ' love ' ' and a relative concentration of the 
power of "malice." Thus when, by an abuse of the meta- 
physical reason, " thought-in-the-abstract " assumes the 
rights of a personality the principle of love is outraged, 
because the eternal idea of the body is denied. 

And when, by an abuse of the psychological reason, the 
other activities of the soul are so stressed and emphasized 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 205 

that the attribute of sensation is forgotten, the principle 
of love is outraged, because the eternal idea of the body 
is denied. The principle of love, by the necessity of its 
own nature, demands that the physiological aspect of real- 
ity should retain its validity. 

When, therefore, we come to consider the relation of 
this "eternal idea of the body" to those invisible "sons 
of the universe" whose power of love is inconceivably 
greater than our own, we are compelled, by the necessity 
of the complex vision, to encounter one of those ultimate 
dilemmas from which there appears to be no escape. The 
dilemma to which we are thus led may be defined in the 
following manner. 

Because the secret of the universe and the ultimate har- 
mony between the pre-existent ideas by which all souls 
must live can be nothing less than what, in this rarified 
and heightened sense, we have named "love" and because 
the objective pattern and standard of this love is the crea- 
tive energy of those personal souls we have named "the 
sons of the universe," therefore "the sons of the universe" 
must be regarded as directing their desire and their will 
towards what satisfies the inherent nature of such love. 
And because the inherent nature of such love demands 
nothing less than the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and 
blood, therefore the "sons of the universe" must be re- 
garded as directing their desire and their will towards 
the eternalizing of the idea of flesh and blood. 

And just as the will and desire of these "invisible com- 
panions of men" must be regarded as directed towards 
the eternalizing of this idea whose magical "stuff of 
dreams" is one of the objects of their love, so the will 
and desire of all living souls must be directed towards the 
eternalizing of this same reality. And because the love 
of all living souls remains restless and unsatisfied when 
directed to any object except the "eternal vision" and 



• 206 THE COMPLEX VISION 

because when directed to the "eternal vision" such love 
loses the misery of its craving and becomes satisfied, there- 
fore the "eternal vision" must be regarded as the only 
object which can ultimately and really satisfy the eternal 
restlessness of the love of all living souls. 

But the inherent nature of love demands, as we have 
seen, the permanent reality of the physiological aspect of 
the universe. That is to say, the inherent desire of the 
love of all living souls is. directed towards the eternalizing 
of the idea of flesh and blood. From this it follows that 
since the "eternal vision" satisfies the desire of love "the 
eternal vision" must include within it the eternal idea of 
the body. 

Both "the sons of the universe," therefore, and all other 
living souls are compelled, in so far as they give them- 
selves up to the creative energy, to direct their will towards 
the eternalization of this idea. But is there not an inevi- 
table frustration and negation of this desire and this will ? 

Are not both the "companions of men" and men them- 
selves denied by the very nature of things the realization 
of this idea? Is not the love of man for "the sons of the 
universe" frustrated in its desire in so far as "the sons of 
the universe ' ' cannot be embodied in flesh and blood ? And 
is not the love of "the sons of the universe" for man frus- 
trated in its desire in so far as the physical form of each 
individual soul is destroyed by death? 

It seems to me that this dilemma cannot be avoided. 
Love insists on the eternity of the idea of the body. There- 
fore every soul who loves "the sons of the universe" de- 
sires their incarnation. But if "the sons of the universe" 
could appear in flesh and blood for the satisfaction of any 
one of their lovers, all other souls in the wide world would 
lose them as their invisible companions. But although 
this dilemma cannot in its literal outlines be avoided, it 
seems that the same inherent nature of love which leads to 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 207 

this dilemma leads also to the vanishing point or gap or 
lacuna in thought where the solution, although never ac- 
tually realized, may conceivably exist. 

What love desires is the eternalizing of the idea of flesh 
and blood. It desires this because the idea of flesh and 
blood is a necessary aspect of the fulness and complete- 
ness of personality. But though the idea of flesh and 
blood is a necessary aspect of personality, every actual 
incarnation of personality leaves us aware that the particu- 
lar soul we love has something more of beauty and nobil- 
ity than is expressed. 

This l ' something more ' ' is not a mere hypothetical qual- 
ity but is an actual and real quality which we must assume 
to exist in the very stuff and texture of the soul. It exists, 
therefore, in that "vanishing-point of sensation," as I 
called it, which we have to think of, although we cannot 
define it, as constituting the soul's essential self. Those 
pre-existed ideas which find their synthesis in the emotion 
of love are undoubtedly part of the unfathomable universe. 
But they are this only because they are interwoven with the 
unfathomable soul which exists in each of us. The "some- 
thing, ' ' therefore, which is the substratum of the soul and 
its centre of identity is a thing woven out of the very stuff 
of these ideas. 

This is the "vanishing point of sensation" to which I 
have referred, the point namely where what we call 
"mind" blends indissolubly with what we call "matter." 
The emotion of love which desires the eternalization of the 
idea of flesh and blood would be on the way to satisfaction, 
even if it never altogether reached it, if it were able to feel 
that this beauty and nobility and reality which exist in 
this "vanishing point of sensation" which is the very self 
of the soul were actually the living essence of flesh and 
blood, were, in fact, a real "spiritual body," of which the 
material body was the visible expression. 



208 THE COMPLEX YISION 

It is the inherent nature of love itself, with its craving 
for reality, which leads us to the verge of this conception ; 
and although this conception can never, as we have seen, 
become more than a " vanishing-point of sensation" we 
have at least the satisfaction of knowing that if we were 
able to define the thing more clearly it would cease at once 
to be the object of love ; because it would cease to be that 
mysterious fusion of "mind" and "matter" which it is the 
nature of love to crave. 

Without the necessity then that these immortal ones 
whom I call the "sons of the universe" should satisfy the 
love of human souls by any physical incarnation, they may 
be considered as leading such love upon the true way by 
simply being what they are ; that is by being living souls. 
For, as living souls, they also must possess as the centre 
of their being, a "spiritual body," or fusion-point of 
"mind" and "matter," which is the inner reality of flesh 
and blood. 

This "spiritual body" of "the gods" or the "sons of 
the universe" must necessarily be more noble and more 
beautiful than any visible embodiment of them could pos- 
sibly be ; though human imagination and human art have a 
profound right to attempt to visualize such an impossible 
embodiment; and the purest and most natural form of 
"religion" would be the form which struggled most suc- 
cessfully to appropriate such a visualization. 

And just as the human soul can satisfy something, though 
not all, of its desire for the eternalizing of flesh and blood 
in the "spiritual bodies" of these "invisible companions," 
so the gods can themselves satisfy something, though not 
all, of their love for the individual soul in the reality of 
the soul's "spiritual body." 

All this may carry to certain minds an ambiguous and 
even distasteful association ; but I think it will only do so 
to such minds as are reluctant to analyse, to the furthest 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 209 

limit, their own capacity for the kind of "love" I have 
attempted to describe; and possibly also such minds as are 
debarred, by some sub-conscious element of " malice" in 
them, from even desiring to develop such a capacity. 

The ambiguity and unsatisfactory vagueness in what I 
have been attempting to indicate may perhaps be in a 
measure dissipated by a direct appeal to concrete expe- 
rience. When one analyses this emotion of love in rela- 
tion to any actual human object I think it becomes clear 
that in our attitude to the physical body of the person we 
love there is a profound element of pity. 

The sexual emotion may destroy this pity ; and any emo- 
tion which is sensual as well as sexual may not only destroy 
it but turn it into a very different kind of pity; into the 
"pity," namely, of a torturer for his victim. But I feel 
I am not wrong in my analysis of the kind of ' ' love ' ' I have 
in my mind, when I say that the element of pity enters 
profoundly into our attitude towards the body of the per- 
son we love. 

It enters into it for this reason ; namely because the phys- 
ical body of the person we love does so inadequately and 
so imperf ectedly express the beauty of such a person 's soul. 
"Love is not love" when the blemishes and defects and 
maladies of the physical form of the person loved interfere 
with our love and cause it to diminish. And such blemishes 
and defects and maladies would interfere with love if love 
were not in its essence profoundly penetrated by pity. 

It may be asked — "how can love, which is naturally as- 
sociated with beauty and nobility, endure for a moment 
in the presence of such lamentable hideousness and repul- 
siveness and offensiveness, as exists in some degree in the 
physiological aspects of us all?" It is able to endure be- 
cause in the presence of this what it desires is, as I have 
said, not so much the actual physical body of the object 
of its love as the "eternal idea" of such a body. 



210 THE COMPLEX VISION 

When the individual soul allows itself to demand with 
too desperate a craving the actual incarnation of these 
"sons of the universe" it is in reality false to its desire 
for the "eternal idea of the body," because no actual in- 
carnation of these immortal ones could realize in any com- 
plete sense this "eternal idea." 

In the same way when we feel the emotion of love to- 
wards any human soul, our attitude towards the physical 
form of such a soul must of necessity be profoundly pene- 
trated by pity and by a tender and humorous recognition 
that such a physical form only expresses a very limited 
portion of the unfathomable soul which we love. 

If, with a desperate craving to contradict the essential 
nature of love, we insist upon regarding the physical body 
as the complete expression of the soul, we fall into the same 
fatal weakness as that into which those fall who demand 
a physical incarnation of the "companions of men," and 
along with such as these we are false to love 's true craving 
for the "eternal idea of flesh and blood." 

In other words, this craving of love for "the eternal 
idea of the body ' ' does not imply that we are false to love 
when we are unable to change our natural repugnance in 
the presence of the repulsive and the offensive into attrac- 
tion to these things. Love certainly does not mean a mor- 
bid attraction to what is unattractive. The sexual emo- 
tion, the emotion which we call "being in love," does 
sometimes include this morbidity, just because, by reason 
of its physiological origin, it tends to remain the slave of 
the physiological. But although love does not imply a 
morbid attraction to the repulsive and the offensive, and 
although the presence of the repulsive and offensive in con- 
nection with those we love is a proof to us that ' ' the eternal 
idea of the body," is not realized in the actual body, it is 
clear that "love is not love" when it allows itself to be 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 211 

diminished or destroyed by the presence of these things. 

What love really demands, both with regard to the uni- 
verse and with regard to any individual soul in the uni- 
verse, is not so much the retention of the physiological as- 
pect of these things, as we know them now, but of the 
physiological aspect of them implied in such a phrase as 
"the eternal idea of matter" or "the eternal idea of flesh 
and blood." 

It may be put still more simply by saying that what 
love demands is the existence of something in what we 
call "matter" or the "body" which guarantees the eternal 
reality of these aspects of life. It does not demand that 
we should love the repulsive, the offensive, the false, or the 
evil, because these exist in the bodies and the souls of 
those we love. 

Everything in the universe partakes of the eternal dual- 
ity. The hideous, the false and the evil are not confined 
to what we call "mind" but exist in what we call "matter" 
also. Consequently love, when in its craving for complete 
reality it demands "the eternal idea of the body" does not 
demand that this eternal idea should be realized in any 
actual body. 

When a demand of this kind is made, it is not made by 
love but by the sexual instinct, and it is invariably doomed 
to a ghastly disillusion. For it is just this very craving, 
namely that in some actual human body "the eternal idea 
of the body" should be realized, that the sweet and ter- 
rible madness of sexual love continually implies. But real 
love, the love which is the supreme synthesis of those ideas 
which represent the creative power in the ultimate duality, 
can never be disillusioned. 

And it cannot be disillusioned because it is able to see, 
beneath the chaotic litter and unessential debris of "mat- 
ter," the eternal idea of "matter" and because it is able 



212 THE COMPLEX VISION 

to see, under the lamentable repulsiveness and offensive- 
ness of so much actual flesh and blood/' the eternal idea 
of flesh and blood." 

Love's attitude toward this element of litter and chaos 
in the universe is sometimes an attitude of humorous toler- 
ation and sometimes an attitude of destructive fire. Love 's 
attitude towards the repulsive and the offensive in human 
souls and bodies is sometimes an attitude of humorous 
toleration and sometimes an attitude of destructive fire. 

But along with this passion of destruction, which is so 
essential a part of the passion of creation, and along with 
this humorous indulgence, there necessarily mingles, where 
human beings are concerned, an element of profound pity. 
The best concrete example of the mood I am trying to indi- 
cate is the emotion which any one would naturally feel in 
the presence of some torturer or tyrant whom he had slain, 
or even whom he had surprised asleep. For the preroga- 
tive of both sleep and death is that they obliterate the 
repulsive elements of flesh and blood and set free its eternal 
idea. 

And this is true of death even after the ghastly process 
of chemical dissolution has actually begun. A loathing of 
matter as matter, a hatred and contempt for the body as 
the body, is therefore a manifestation not of love but of the 
opposite of love. Such a loathing of the physiological is 
a sign of a weakening of the creative energy. It is also a 
sign of the stiffening of the resistant "malice," or "mo- 
tiveless malignity," which opposes creation. What the 
energy of love directs its desire and its will towards, is 
first the "eternal idea of the soul," the idea of the rhythmic 
harmony of "mind" and "matter" fused and lost in one 
another, and then "the eternal idea of the body," the idea 
of the rhythmic projection of this invisible harmony upon 
the visible fabric of the world. 

Thus we arrive at the only definition of the nature ol 



THE NATURE OF LOVE 213 

love which is satisfactory to the deepest moments of feel- 
ing experienced by the human soul. In such moments 
the soul gathers itself together on the verge and brink of 
the unknown. Something beyond the power of our will 
takes possession then of all that we are. In our momentary 
and transitory movement of the complex vision we are per- 
mitted to pass across the ultimate threshold. 

We enter then that mysterious rhythm which I have 
called ''The Eternal Vision"; and in place of our desire 
for personal immortality, in place of our desire for the 
possession of any person or thing, in place of our contem- 
plation of "forces" and "energies" and "evolution" or 
"dissolution," in place of our struggle for "existence" or 
for "power," we become suddenly aware that in the out- 
flowing and reciprocal inter-action of the emotion of love 
there is something that reduces all these to insignificance, 
something that out of the very depths of the poisonous 
misery of the world and the irony of the world and the 
madness of the world utters its defiant Rabelaisian signal, 
"Bon espoir y gist au fond." 



CHAPTER IX 

THE NATURE OP THE GODS 

We must now return to our original definition of the 
true philosophical instrument of research in order to see 
if we can secure from it a clearer notion as to the nature 
of the Gods. Such an instrument is, as we have seen, the 
apex-thought of the complex vision using all its attributes 
in rhythmic unison. For the complex vision using all its 
attributes in unison is only another name for the soul using 
the body and using something more than the body. 

If the soul could use no attributes except those given 
to it by the body, it might, or it might not, arrive at the 
idea of the ' ' sons of the universe. ' ' It certainly could not 
enter into any relation with such immortal beings. But 
since it has arrived at such a conception "it is impossible 
for it ever to fall entirely away from what it has reached. ' ' 
For the same unfathomable duality which gave birth to the 
sons of the universe has given birth to men; and between 
these two, between the ideal figures who cannot perish and 
the generations of souls who for ever appear and for ever 
pass away there is an eternal understanding. And the un- 
derstanding between these two depends upon the fact that 
they are both children of the same unfathomable duality. 

But this duality which is the cause why the universe is 
the universe and not something other than the universe, 
must remain as great a mystery to the souls of the "com- 
panions of men" as it is to all the souls in the world who 
recognize them as their ideal. 

We cannot escape the impression that this complex vi- 

214 



THE NATURE OP THE GODS 215 

sion of ours, which is our instrument of research and which 
leaves us in the presence of an unfathomable duality, finds 
a parallel in the complex vision of the sons of the universe 
which is their instrument of research and which leaves 
them also in the presence of an unfathomable duality. 
We cannot escape from the impression that to these chil- 
dren of the eternal duality the mystery of this duality is as 
dark as it is to ourselves. 

They find themselves struggling to overcome malice with 
love, even as we find ourselves struggling to overcome mal- 
ice with love. They find themselves driven to creation and 
destruction. The complex vision, which is their instru- 
ment of research, is baffled in the same way as the complex 
vision which is our instrument of research. 

If, therefore, in our desperate struggle with the unfath- 
omable nature of this duality, we demand why it is that 
the gods have failed, in spite of their love, to give us any 
clue to some ultimate reconciliation, the answer must be 
that such an ultimate reconciliation is as much beyond the 
reach of their vision as it is beyond the reach of ours. The 
attainment of such a reconciliation would seem to mean 
the absolute end of life as we know it and of creation as 
we know it. Such a reconciliation would seem to mean 
nothing less than the swallowing up of the universe in un- 
thinkable nothingness. 

The truth is that in this ultimate revelation of the com- 
plex vision we are confronted with an inevitable triad, or 
trinity, of primordial aspects. We are compelled to think 
of a plurality of living souls of which our own is one; of 
certain ideal companions of all souls whose vision gives to 
our vision its objective value ; and of an external universe 
which is the creation of this vision. 

What the complex vision indicates, therefore, is a sys- 
tem of things which has a monistic aspect, for there is only 
one space and only one succession of time; a pluralistic 



216 THE COMPLEX VISION 

aspect, for the system of things gives birth continually to 
innumerable individual souls; and a dualistic aspect, for 
the universe itself is created by the struggle between love 
and malice. 

What the complex vision does not indicate is any ulti- 
mate principle which reduces this complex system of things 
to the unbroken mass of one integral unity. The nearest 
approach to such an unbroken, integral unity is to be found 
in that indefinable " medium" which makes it possible for 
the innumerable souls which compose the universe to- com- 
municate with one another and with their invisible pre- 
existent companions. It is only the existence of this in- 
definable medium which makes it possible for us to speak 
of a universe at all. For this medium is the objective 
ground, or basis, so to say, from the midst of which each 
individual vision creates its own universe, always appeal- 
ing as it does so to that objective standard or pattern of 
truth offered by the vision of man's invisible companions. 
What we roughly and loosely call "the universe" or "na- 
ture" is therefore an accumulated projection or creation 
of all the souls which exist, held together by this pervading 
medium which enables them to communicate with one an- 
other. In this eternal process of creating the universe by 
their united visions, all these souls must inevitably appeal, 
consciously or unconsciously, to the vision of their pre- 
existent companions. 

The best justification which can be offered for the ex- 
pression sons of the universe as applied to these invisible 
companions is to be found in the inevitable anthropomorph- 
ism of all human thought. The breaking point, so to 
speak, of man 's vision, that ecstasy of comprehension which 
I call his apex-thought, is the moment which makes him 
aware of these companions' existence. And, at this ecstatic 
moment, all individual souls find their personality deep- 
ened to such a point that they feel themselves possessed of 



THE NATURE OP THE GODS 217 

the very secret of the ultimate duality, feel themselves to 
be, in fact, unfathomable personifications of that duality. 
And their intimation or vision with regard to the gods 
presents itself to them at that moment as the very nature 
and true being of the gods. Yet it must be remembered 
that this intimation is a thing which we reach only by pain 
and exquisite effort; is a thing, in fact, which is the cul- 
minating point of an elaborate and difficult ''work of art" 
requiring a rhythm and a harmony in our nature attained 
by no easy road. 

Since, therefore, the reality of these invisible compan- 
ions though implied in all our intercourse with one an- 
other, is only visualized as actual and authentic when our 
subjective vision is at its highest point, and since when 
our subjective vision is at its highest point it conveys the 
sensation, rightly or wrongly, that what we call our "uni- 
verse" is their universe also, it is not without justification 
that we use the anthropomorphic expresssion "the sons of 
the universe" to describe these invisible companions. 

This expression, the sons of the universe, this idea of an 
objective standard of all ideas, is something that we attain 
with difficulty and not something that we just pick up 
as we go along. The "objective," in this sense, is the 
supreme attainment of the "subjective." And although 
when we have found these companions they become real 
and actual, we must not forget that, in the long process of 
escaping from the subjectivity of ourselves into the objec- 
tivity of their existence, it was our own subjective vision 
with the rhythmic ecstasy of its apex-thought which led 
us to the brink of this discovery. Thus the expression 
"the sons of the universe" finds its justification. For 
they are the objective discovery, as well as the objective 
implication, of all our human and subjective visions. We 
and they together create the universe and together be- 
come the "children" of the world we create. 



218 THE COMPLEX VISION 

And although the universe when thus created remains 
the creation of man, assisted by the gods, it now presents 
itself to us, in its acquired and attained objectivity, as a 
pre-existent thing which is rather our parent than our 
creation. This objective reality of it, with the inevitable 
implication that it existed before we came on the scene at 
all, and will exist after we have disappeared from the 
scene, is a truth towards which our subjective vision has 
led us, but which, when once we reach it, seems to become 
independent of our subjective vision. 

Here again, therefore, in connection with the universe 
as in connection with the gods, the creation of our sub- 
jectivity is found to be something independent of our sub- 
jectivity and something that, all the while, has been im- 
plicit in the energy of our subjective vision. And pre- 
cisely as the subjective vision of man creates the compan- 
ions of men and then discovers them to be an objective 
reality, so the subjective vision of man creates the uni- 
verse and then discovers the universe to be an objective 
reality. And in both cases this discovering finds its jus- 
tification in a recognition that the idea of this resultant 
objectivity was implicit in the subjective energy from the 
beginning. But the universe once created or discovered, 
is found to be the eternal manifestation of that ultimate 
duality which is the essence of our own souls and of the 
souls of the immortals. 

In no other way can we think of the objectivity of the 
universe; for in no other way can we think of ourselves. 
And because it is the evocation of that ultimate duality 
which is the very stuff and texture of our creative vision, 
the universe becomes naturally the parent of man's in- 
visible companions as it becomes the parent of man him- 
self. And thus are we justified in speaking of these mys- 
terious ones as the ' ' sons of the universe. ' ' 

It is out of pain and grief that we arrive at the concep- 



THE NATURE OP THE GODS 219 

tion of the nature of the gods. ' ' Those who have not eaten 
their bread with tears, they know them not, the Heavenly 
Powers !" Pain and sorrow, both physical and mental, 
seem to soften the porous shell, so to speak, of the human 
intelligence, seem to throw back certain shutter-like shards 
or scales with which it protects its malignant ignorance. 

It is when our loneliness becomes intolerable, it is when 
the poisonous teeth of the eternal malice in Nature have us 
by the throat, it is when our malice rises up, in the miser- 
able torture of hatred, to answer the malice of the system 
of things, that, out of the depths, we cry to the darkness 
which surrounds us for some voice or some signal that 
shall give us an intimation of help. Merely to know that 
our wretched pain is known to some one besides ourselves 
is an incredible relief. Merely to know that some sort of 
super-human being, even without special preoccupation 
with human fate, can turn an amused or an indulgent 
clairvoyance towards our wretchedness, can "note" it with 
dispassionate sympathy, as we note the hurts of animals 
or plants, is a sort of consolation. It is a relief to know 
that what we feel when we are hurt to the breaking-point 
is not absolutely wasted and lost in the void, but is stored 
up in an immortal memory along with many other pains 
of the same kind. That cry, ' ' Only He do know what I do 
suffer ' ' of the Wessex peasant is a cry natural to the whole 
human race. It is not that we ask to be confronted and 
healed by our immortal friend. We ask merely that our 
sorrows should not be altogether drowned in the abyss as 
though they had never been. There is a certain outrage 
about this annihilation of the very memory of pain against 
which humanity protests. 

But it is necessary at this point to beware of the old 
pathetic fallacy of human thought, the fallacy of assum- 
ing that to be true, which we desire to be true. What our 
complex vision reveals as to the nature of the gods does not 



220 THE COMPLEX YISION 

satisfy in any abvious or facile manner this bitter need of 
humanity. If it did so satisfy it, then for some profound 
and mysterious reason man's own aesthetic sense would 
revolt against it, would indignantly reject it, as too smooth 
an answer to life's mystery. 

For man's aesthetic sense seems in some strange way to 
be in league with a certain inveterate tragedy in things, 
which no facile optimism can ever cajole or melt. 

That the gods are aware of our existence can hardly 
be doubted. That they feel pity for us, in this or that 
significant hour, can easily be imagined. That the evil 
in us draws towards us what is evil in them seems like- 
wise a not unnatural possibility. That the love in us draws 
towards us the love in them is a thing in complete accord- 
ance with our own relation to forms of life lower than our- 
selves. That even at certain moments the gods may, by a 
kind of celestial vampirizing, use the bodily senses of men 
to "fill out," as it were, what is lacking in their own ma- 
teriality, is a conceivable speculation. 

But it is not in any definite relation between the indi- 
vidual soul of man and the individual soul of any one 
of the immortals that our hope lies. If this were all that 
we could look for, our condition would be as miserable as 
the condition of those unhappy ones who seek intermittent 
and fantastic relief in attempted intercourse with the 
psychic and the occult. 

Our hope lies in that immemorial and traditional human 
gesture which has, in the unique figure of Christ, gathered 
up and focused, as it were, all the vague and floating inti- 
mations of super-human sympathy, all the shadowy ru- 
mours and intimations of super-human help, which move 
to and fro in the background of our apprehension. 

The figure of Christ has thus become something more 
than a mere name arbitrarily given by us to some name- 
less god. The figure of Christ has become a symbol, an 



THE NATURE OF THE GODS 221 

intermediary, a kind of cosmic high-priest, standing be- 
tween all that is mortal and all that is immortal in the 
world, and by means of the love and pity that is in him 
partaking of the nature of every living thing. 

When, therefore, out of the bitterness of our fate we 
cry aloud upon the Unknown, the answer to our cry comes 
from the heart of Christ. In other words it comes from the 
epitome and personification of all the love in the universe. 
For to the figure of Christ has been brought, down the 
long ages of the world, all the baffled, thwarted, broken, 
unsatisfied love in every soul that has ever lived. It is 
in the heart of Christ that all the nameless sorrows and 
miseries, of the innumerable lives that Nature gives birth 
to, are stored up and remembered. Not one single pang, 
felt by plant or animal or bird or fish or man or planet, 
but is embalmed for ever in that mysterious store-house 
of the universal pity. Thus, if there were no other super- 
human Beings in the world and if apart from the creative 
energy of all souls Christ would never have existed, as it 
is now He does exist because He lias been created by the 
creative power of all souls. 

But while in one sense the figure of Christ is the su- 
preme work of art of the world, the culminating achieve- 
ment of the anonymous creative energy of all souls, the 
turning of the transitory into the eternal, of the mortal 
into the immortal, of the human into the divine; in an- 
other sense the figure of Christ is a real and living person- 
ality, the one personality among the gods, whose nature 
we may indeed assume that we understand and know. 

How should we not understand it, when it has been in 
so large a measure created by our sorrow and our de- 
sire? 

But the fact that the anonymous striving of humanity 
with the objective mystery has in a sense created the figure 
of Christ does not reduce the figure of Christ to a mere 



222 THE COMPLEX VISION 

Ideal. As we have seen with regard to the primordial 
ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness, nothing can be an 
Ideal which has not already, in the eternal system of 
things, existed as a reality. 

"What we call the pursuit of truth, or the creation of 
truth, what we call the pursuit of beauty or the creation 
of beauty, is always a return to something which has been 
latent in the eternal nature of the system of things. In 
other words, in all creation there is a rediscovery, just as 
in all discovery there is creation. 

The figure of Christ, therefore, the everlasting inter- 
mediary between mortality and immortality, has been at 
once created and discovered by humanity. When any 
living soul approaches the figure of Christ, or cries aloud 
upon Christ out of the depths of its misery, it cries aloud 
upon all the love that has ever existed in the world. It 
enters at such a moment into definite communion with all 
the suffering of all the dead and with all the suffering of 
all the unborn. 

For in the heart of Christ all the dead are gathered up 
into immortality, and all their pain remembered. In the 
heart of Christ all the unborn live already, in their pain 
and in their joy; for such pain and such joy are latent 
in the ultimate duality of love and malice, and in the heart 
of Christ this ultimate duality struggles with such ter- 
rible concentration that all the antagonisms which the pro- 
cession of time evokes, all the "moments" of this abysmal 
drama, in the past, in the present, in the future, are summed 
up and comprehended in what that heart feels. 

The ancient human doctrine of "vicarious suffering," 
the doctrine that upon the person of Christ all the sins 
and sorrows of the world are laid, is not a mere logical 
conclusion of a certain set of theological axioms; but is a 
real and true secret of life, discovered by our most inti- 
mate experience. 



THE NATURE OF THE GODS 223 

The profoundest of all the oracles, uttered out of the 
depths, is that saying of Jesus about the "losing" of life 
to "save" it. This "losing of life" for Christ's sake is 
that ultimate act of the will by which the lusts of the flesh, 
the pride of life, the possessive instinct, the hatred of the 
body, the malice which resists creation, the power of pride, 
are all renounced, in order that the soul may enter into 
that supreme vision of Christ, wherein by a mysterious 
movement of sympathy, all the struggles of all living things 
are comprehended and shared. 

Thus it is true to say that the object of life for all liv- 
ing souls is the eternal vision. Towards the attainment 
of the eternal vision the love in all living souls perpetually 
struggles ; and against the attainment of the eternal vision 
the malice in all living souls perpetually struggles. We 
arrive, therefore, at the only adequate conception of 
the nature of the gods which the complex vision permits 
us. 

The nature of the gods, or of the immortals, or, as I have 
preferred to call them, the sons of the universe, is a nature 
which corresponds to our nature, even as our nature cor- 
responds to the nature of animals or of plants. The ulti- 
mate duality is embodied in the nature of the gods more 
richly, more beautifully, more terribly, in a more dramatic 
and articulate concentration, than it is embodied in our 
nature. Between us and the gods there must be a recip- 
rocal vibration, as there is a reciprocal vibration between 
us and plants and beasts and oceans and hills. The precise 
nature of such reciprocity may well be left a matter for 
vague and unphilosophical speculation; because the im- 
portant aspect of it, in regard to the mystery of life and 
the object of life, is not the method or manner of its func- 
tioning but the issue and the result of its functioning. 
And this issue and result of the reciprocity between mortal 
and immortal, between man and his invisible companions, 



224 THE COMPLEX YISION 

is the eternal vision which they both share, the vision in 
which love attains its object. 

And the eternal vision, which was, and is, and is to 
come, is the vision in which Christ, the Intermediary be- 
tween the transitory and the permanent, contemplates the 
spectacle of the unfathomable world ; and is able to endure 
that spectacle, by reason of the creative power of love. 



CHAPTER X 

THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 

In considering the figure of that great Intermediary be- 
tween mortality and immortality whom we have come to 
name Christ, the question arises, in view of the historic 
existence of other world-saviours, such as the Indian 
Buddha, whether it would not be better to invent, out of 
our arbitrary fancy, some completely new symbol for the 
eternal vision which should be entirely free from those 
merely geographical associations which have limited the 
acceptance of this Figure to so much less than one-half 
of the inhabitants of our planet. 

The question arises — can there be invented any concrete, 
tangible symbol which shall appeal to every attribute of 
the complex vision and be an accumulated image of that 
side of the unfathomable duality from which we draw our 
ideas of truth, beauty, and goodness? 

For the complex vision itself I have projected my own 
arbitrary image of an arrow-head of many concentrated 
flames; but when we approach a matter as important as 
the choice of a symbolic image for the expression of the 
ultimate synthesis of the good as contrasted with the evil 
something very different from a mere subjective fancy is 
required. 

If it were possible for me, the present writer, to give 
myself up so completely to the creative spirit as to become 
suddenly inspired with the true idea of such a symbolic 
image, even then my image would remain detached, remote 
and individualistic. If it were possible for me to gather 
up, as it were, and to bring into focus all the symbolic 

225 



226 THE COMPLEX VISION 

images used by all the supreme prophets and artists and 
poets of the world, my synthetic symbol, including all 
these different symbols, would still remain remote and dis- 
tant from the feelings and experiences of the mass of hu- 
manity. 

But the ideas of truth, beauty, goodness, together with 
that emotion of love which is their synthesis, are not con- 
fined to the great artists and prophets of the world. They 
are felt and experienced by the common mass of human- 
ity. They have indeed an even wider scope than this, since 
they exist in the depths of the souls of the sons of the uni- 
verse, and in the depths of that unfathomable universe 
whose objective reality depends upon their energy. They 
have the widest scope which it is possible for the complex 
vision to grasp. Wherever time and space are, they are; 
and, as we have seen, time and space make up the ulti- 
mate unity within whose limits the drama of life pro- 
ceeds. 

Although the universe depends for its objective reality 
upon the vision of the immortals and incidentally upon all 
the visions of all the souls born into the world, it is not 
true to say that either the vision of the immortals or the 
visions of all souls, or even both of these together, exhaust 
the possibilities of the universe and sound the depths of 
its unfathomableness. The complex vision of man stops 
at a certain point; but the unfathomable nature of the 
universe goes on beyond that point. The complex vision 
of the immortals stops at a definite point; but the un- 
fathomable nature of the universe goes on beyond that 
point. 

If it be asked, "how can it be said that an universe, 
which depends for its objective reality upon the complex 
vision, goes on beyond the point where the complex vision 
stops?" I would answer that the complex vision does not 
only create reality; it discovers reality. There is always 



THE FIGURE OP CHRIST 227 

the primordial objective mystery outside the complex vi- 
sion ; that objective mystery, or world-stuff, or world-clay, 
out of which, in its process of half-creation and half-dis- 
covery, the complex vision evokes the universe. 

And although apart from the activity of the complex vi- 
sion this primordial world-clay or objective mystery is 
almost nothing because it is only of its bare existence that 
we are aware, yet it is not altogether nothing, because it 
is, in a sense, the origin of everything we discover. "When, 
therefore, we speak of the unfathomable as receding into 
depths beyond the point where the vision «of man stops 
and beyond the point where the vision of the immortals 
stops, we do not contradict the statement that the vision 
of man and the vision of the immortals create the uni- 
verse. They create the universe in so far as they discover 
the universe; but the universe must be thought of as al- 
ways capable of being further discovered and further cre- 
ated. Perhaps the most adequate way of putting the situa- 
tion would be to image the objective mystery as a kind of 
colourless screen across which a coloured picture is slowly 
moved. This coloured picture* is the universe as we know 
it. Without the white screen as a background there could 
be no picture. All the colours of the picture are latent 
and potential in the whiteness of the screen; but they re- 
quire the focussed lime-light of the magic-lantern to call 
them forth. The lantern from which the light comes, half- 
creates, so to speak, and half-discovers the resultant colours. 

When we say, therefore, that the universe, although cre- 
ated by the complex vision, recedes into unfathomable 
depths beyond the reach of the complex vision, what we 
mean is that the boundary line between the moving colour- 
picture, which is the universe, and the original whiteness 
of the screen across which the picture is moved, which is 
the objective mystery, is capable of endless recession. The 
blank whiteness of the part of the screen over which the 



228 THE COMPLEX VISION 

picture has not yet moved is capable of revealing every 
kind of colour as soon as the f ocussed lime-light of the com- 
plex vision reaches it. The colours are in the whiteness of 
the screen as well as in the lime-light which is thrown upon 
the screen ; but neither the lantern which throws the light 
nor the screen upon which the light is thrown, can, in isola- 
tion from one another, produce colour. 

The universe, therefore, is half-created and half-discov- 
ered by the complex vision; and it may be said to go on 
beyond the point where the complex vision stops, although 
strictly speaking what goes on beyond the stopping place 
of the complex vision is not the universe as we know it but 
a potential universe as we may come to know it ; a universe, 
in fact, which is at present held in suspense in the un- 
fathomable depths of the objective mystery. 

This potential universe, this universe which will come 
into existence as soon as the complex vision discovers it 
and creates it, this universe across which gathers already 
the moving shadow of the complex vision, is not a new 
universe but only an extension into a further depth of the 
objective mystery, of the universe which we already know. 

"We are not justified in saying of this objective mystery 
or .of this white screen across which the colours will pres- 
ently flow, that it is outside time and space. We are not 
justified in saying anything at all about it, except that it 
exists and that it lends itself to the advance of the com- 
plex vision. If in place of a white screen we could figure 
to ourselves this objective mystery as a mass of impene- 
trable darkness, we should thus be able to envisage the 
complex vision as I have tried to envisage it, namely as a 
moving arrow-head of focussed flames with the point of it, 
or what I have named the apex-thought of it, illuminating 
that mass of darkness with all the colours of life. 

But, as I have said, none of these subjective images can 
serve as the sort of symbol we are in search of, because by 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 229 

reason of their being arbitrary and individualistic they 
lack the organic and magical associations which cling round 
such symbols as have become objective and historical. We 
can content ourselves with such fanciful symbols as white 
screens and arrow-heads and pyramids of fire in regard to 
the organ of our research and the original protoplasmic 
stuff out of which this organ of research creates the world ; 
but when it comes to the purpose of life and the meaning 
of life, when it comes to that unfathomable duality which 
is the essence of life, we require for our symbol something 
that has already gathered about it the whole desperate 
stream cf life's tears and blood and dreams and ecstasies 
and memories and hopes. 

We can find no symbol for the adversary of life, no sym- 
bol for the malignant obscurantism and the sneering malice 
that resist creation. To endow this thing which is in the 
way, this unfathomable depth of spiritual evil, with the 
vivid and imaginative life of a symbolic image would be 
to change its inherent nature. No adequate symbol can 
be found for evil, any more than a complete embodiment 
can be found for evil. Directly evil becomes personal it 
ceases to be evil, because personality is the supreme achieve- 
ment of life. And directly evil is expressed in a living, 
objective, historic, mythological image it ceases to be evil, 
because such an image instantaneously gathers to itself 
some potency of creative energy. Evil is a positive thing, 
a spiritual thing, an eternal thing; but it is positive only 
in its opposition to creation, in its corruption of the soul, 
and in its subtle undermining of the divine moments of 
the soul by the power of eternal dreariness and disillu- 
sion. 

What we need above everything is a symbolic image 
which shall represent the creative energy of life, the cre- 
ative power of love, and those eternal ideas of truth and 
beauty and nobility which seem in some mysterious way 



230 THE COMPLEX VISION 

derogated from, rendered less formidable and unfathom- 
able, by being named "the good." 

The desire for a symbol of this kind, which shall gather 
together all the tribes and nations of men and all con- 
flicting ideals of humanity, is a desire so deep and uni- 
versal as to be perhaps the supreme desire of the human 
race. No symbol arbitrarily invented by any one man, 
even though he were the greatest genius that ever lived, 
could supply this want or satisfy this desire. And it could 
not do so because it would lack the organic weathering 
and bleaching, so to speak, of the long panorama of time. 
An individual genius might hit upon a better symbolic 
image, an image more comprehensive, more inclusive, more 
appealing to the entire nature of the complex vision; but 
without having been subjected to the sun and rain of actual 
human experience, without having endured the passion of 
the passing of the generations, such an image would remain, 
for all its appropriateness, remote, intellectual and barren 
of magical suggestiveness. 

I do not mean to indicate that there is necessarily any 
determined or fatalistic process of natural selection in 
these things by which one symbol rather than another 
gathers about it the hopes and fears of the generations. 
Chance no doubt plays a strange part in all this. But 
the concrete necessities of living human souls play a greater 
part than chance; and without believing in any steady 
evolutionary process or even in any law of natural selec- 
tion among the evocations of human desire, it must still 
remain that the symbol which survives will be the symbol 
adapted to the deepest instincts of complicated souls and 
at the same time palpable and tangible to the touch of the 
crudest and most simple. 

It cannot be denied that there are serious difficulties in 
the way of the acceptance of any historic symbol, the 
anonymous evocation of the generations of men. Just be- 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 231 

cause it has a definite place in history such a symbol will 
necessarily have gathered to itself much that is false and 
much that is accidental and unessential. It will have 
entered into bitter controversies. It will have been hard- 
ened and narrowed by the ferocious logic of rationalistic 
definition. It will have been made the rallying cry of 
savage intolerances and the mask for strange perversions. 
Evil will naturally have attached itself to it and malice 
will have left its sinister stain upon it. Because chance 
and accident and even evil have had much to do with its 
survival, it may easily happen that some primary attribute 
of the complex vision, such for instance as the aesthetic 
sense with its innate awareness of the humorous and the 
grotesque, will have been forgotten altogether in the stuff 
out of which it is made. 

Considering such things, considering above all this final 
fact that it may not satisfy every attribute of the complex 
vision, and may even completely suppress and negate some 
essential attribute, it remains still a perilous question 
whether it were not, after all, better to invent a new symbol 
that shall be deliberately adapted to the entire complex 
vision, than to accept an already existing symbol, which 
in the shocks and jolts and casualties, of history has been 
narrowed, limited and stiffened by the malice of attack and 
defence. 

This narrowing and hardening process by which such a 
symbol, the anonymous creation of humanity under the 
shocks of circumstance, becomes limited and inadequate, 
is a process frequently assisted by those premature and 
violent syntheses of the ultimate contradiction which we 
name dogmatic religions. To make such a symbol once 
more fluid and flexible, to restore it to its place in the 
organic life of the soul, it is necessary to extricate it from 
the clutch of any dogmatic religion. I do not say that 
it is necessary to extricate it from religion, or even from 



232 THE COMPLEX VISION 

every aspect of dogma ; for it is of the very essence of such 
symbol to be a stimulus to the religious ecstasy and there 
are many dogmas which are full of imaginative poetry. 

But it is necessary to extricate it from dogmatic religion 
because dogmatic religion may be defined as a premature 
metaphysical synthesis, masquerading beneath a system of 
imaginative ritual. The truth of religion is in its ritual 
and the truth of dogma is in its poetry. Where a dogmatic 
religion becomes dangerous to any human symbol is when 
it tries to rationalize it and interpret it according to a 
premature metaphysical synthesis. In so far as it remains 
purely symbolic and does not attempt to rationalize its 
symbolism, a dogmatic religion must always contain within 
the circle of its creed many profound and illuminating se- 
crets. The false and ephemeral portion of a dogmatic 
religion is its metaphysical aspect, because the whole sci- 
ence of metaphysics is an ambiguity from the start, since 
it is a projection of one isolated attribute of the complex 
vision. 

What the apex-thought of the complex vision does is to 
undermine metaphysic; not by the use of metaphysic but 
by the use of the rhythmic totality of all the attributes of 
the soul. The philosophy of the complex vision has its 
metaphysical, as it has its psychological and its physiolog- 
ical aspect, but its real starting point must transcend all 
these, because it must emanate from personality. And 
personality is something super-metaphysical ; as it is some- 
thing super-psychological, and super-physiological. 

The creed of a dogmatic religion is not to be condemned 
because it calls upon us to believe the impossible. Some sort 
of belief in the impossible, some primordial act of faith is 
an essential part of the process of life and, without it, life 
could not continue. It is where dogmatic religion attempts 
to justify its belief in the impossible by the use of meta- 






THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 233 

physical reason that we must regard it as an enemy of the 
truth of its own symbolism. 

The supreme example of the evil and dangerous influence 
of metaphysic upon religion is to be found in connection 
with that inscrutable nothingness behind the universe, and 
also behind the objective mystery out of which the soul 
creates the universe. I refer to that ambiguous and un- 
beautiful phantom, which has acquired for itself the name 
of "the absolute," or the parent or first cause of life. 

That the conception of "the sons of the universe," to 
which certain basic facts and experiences in regard to the 
intercourse between living human souls has led humanity, 
is not a metaphysical conception, is proved by the fact 
that it is a conception of a reality existing inside and not 
outside the ultimate unity of time and space. Any pure 
metaphysical conception must, as we have seen, remain out- 
side the categories of time and space, and remaining there 
bear perpetual witness to its essential unreality. 

The sons of the universe are living personal souls; and 
being this, they must be, as all personalities are, super- 
metaphysical, super-psychological, and super-physiological. 

The perilous choice between the invention of an arbitrary 
symbol which shall represent in its full complexity this 
idea of the sons of the universe, and the acceptance of a 
symbol already supplied by that chaotic mixture of acci- 
dent and human purpose which we call history is a choice 
upon which more than we can imagine or surmise may ulti- 
mately depend. It is necessary in all matters of this kind, 
wherein the rhythmic totality of the complex vision is in- 
volved, to remain rigorous in our suppression of any par- 
ticular usurpation of the whole field by any isolated at- 
tribute of the soul. It is a most evil usurpation, for in- 
stance, an usurpation of which the sinister history of dog- 
matic religion is full, when the conscience is allowed to 



234 THE COMPLEX VISION 

introduce the conception of a "duty/' of an "ought," of 
a "categorical" imperative, into such a choice as this. 
There is no ought in philosophy. There is no ought in 
faith. And there can be, in no possible way, any ought 
of the usurping conscience, in regard to this choice of 
an appropriate symbol which shall represent a thing so 
entirely beyond the conception of any single attribute, as 
this eternal protagonist of the ultimate struggle. The risk 
of choosing for our symbol a mere arbitrary invention is 
that it should remain thin and cold and unappealing. 

The risk of choosing for our symbol a form, a figure, a 
gesture, a name, offered us by history, is that it should 
carry with it too many of the false accretions of accident, 
chance, the passions of controversy and the hypocrisies of 
malice. But after all the anonymous creative spirit of 
the generations is so full of the wisdom of the earth and 
so involved with the rhythmic inspiration of innumerable 
souls, that it would seem better to risk the presence of cer- 
tain sinister accretions, than to risk the loss of so much 
magical suggestiveness. 

If we do select for our symbol such a form, such a shape, 
such a gesture and such a name, as history may offer, we 
shall at any rate be always free to keep it fluid and malle- 
able and organic. We shall be free to plunge it, so to 
speak, again and again into the living reality which it has 
been selected to represent. We shall be free to extricate it 
completely from all its accretions of chance and circum- 
stance and material events. We shall be free to extricate 
it from all premature metaphysical syntheses. We shall 
be free to draw it from the clutches of dogmatic religion. 
We shall be free to make it, as all such symbols should be 
made, poetical and mythological and, in the aesthetic sense, 
shamelessly anthropomorphic. Above all we shall be com- 
pletely free, since it represents for us those sons of the 
universe who are the embodiment of the creative energy, 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 235 

to associate it with every aspect of the life of the soul. We 
shall be free to associate it with those aspects of the soul 
which in the process of its slow invention by the genera- 
tions have, it may be, been disassociated from it and sep- 
arated from it. We slnll be free to use it as a symbol for 
the fuller, complete life of the future, and for every kind 
of revolt, into which the spirit of creation may drive us, 
against the evil obscurantism and malicious inertness which 
resist the power of love. 

The conclusion to which we are thus led, the choice which 
we are thus compelled to make, is one that has been an- 
ticipated from the beginning. No other name except the 
name of Christ, no other figure except the figure of Christ, 
can possibly serve, if we are to make any use of history 
at all, as our symbol for the sons of the universe. 

The choice of Christ as our symbol for these invisible 
companions does not imply that we are forced to accept 
in their entirety the scriptural accounts of the life of Jesus, 
or even that we are forced to assume that the historic Jesus 
ever lived at all. The desire which the soul experiences 
for the incarnation of Christ does not prove that Christ 
has already been incarnated, or ever will be incarnated. 
And it does not prove this because, in the greater, nobler, 
and more spiritual moods of the soul, there is no need for 
the incarnation of Christ. In these rare and indescribable 
moments, when the past and future seem annihilated and 
we experience the sensation of eternity, Christ is felt to be 
so close to us that no material incarnation could make him 
any closer. 

The association of Christ with the figure of Jesus is a 
sublime accident which has had more influence upon the 
human soul than any other historic event; and it must 
be confessed that the idea of Christ has been profoundly 
affected by this association. It has been so deepened and 
enlarged and clarified by it that the substitution of the 



236 THE COMPLEX VISION 

religion of Jesus for the religion of Christ has been an 
almost entirely fortunate event, since it has furnished 
the soul with a criterion of the true nature of love which 
otherwise it might never have gained. 

Jesus undoubtedly came so much nearer than any other 
to the understanding of the nature of love, and conse- 
quently of the nature of "the immortals," that the idea 
of the incarnation — that beautiful concession to the weak- 
ness of the flesh — emanated with an almost inevitable nat- 
uralness from their association. Jesus himself felt in his 
own soul the presence of the invisible companions; al- 
though he was led, by reason of his peculiar religious bent, 
and by reason of the influences that surrounded him, to 
speak of these companions as a "heavenly father.'' 

But the words of Jesus which carry with them the very 
magic of truth are not the words in which he speaks of his 
"father," but the words in which he speaks of himself 
as if he were the very incarnation of Love itself. There 
is no doubt that the sons of the universe found in Jesus a 
soul so uniquely harmonious with their own that there 
existed between them a sympathy and an understanding 
without parallel in the history of humanity. 

It is this sympathy which is the origin of those un- 
equalled words used by the son of Mary in which he speaks 
as if he were himself in very truth an incarnation of the 
vision of the immortals. The whole situation is one which 
need have little mystery for those who understand the na- 
ture of love. In moment after moment of supreme ecstasy 
Jesus felt himself so given up to the will of the invisible 
companions that this own identity became lost. In speak- 
ing for himself he spoke for them; in suffering for him- 
self he suffered for them, and in the great hours of his 
tragic wayfaring he felt himself so close to them that, by 
reason of his love, he knew himself able to speak of the 
secret of life even as the immortals themselves would speak. 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 237 

We are permitted indeed in reading the divine narrative 
to distinguish between two moods in the soul of Jesus. In 
one of these moods he refers to his ''father" as if his fa- 
ther were distinct and separate from him and even very 
distant. In the other mood he speaks as if he himself were 
in very truth a god; and were able, without any appeal 
to any other authority, to heal the wounds of the world 
and to reveal to mankind the infinite pity of the love which 
is beyond analysis. 

It is towards the words and gestures of the son of Mary, 
when he spoke of himself rather than of his " father" that 
we are inevitably drawn, in our search for an adequate 
symbol for the eternal vision. It is when he speaks with 
authority as if he himself were an immortal god, as if he 
himself were one of the invisible companions, that his 
words and gestures carry the very breath and fragrance 
of truth. 

As the drama of his life unfolds itself before us we 
seem to grow more and more aware of these two aspects 
of his soul. It was his reason, brooding upon the traditions 
of his race, that led him into that confusion of the invisible 
witnesses with the jealous tribal God of his father David. 
It was the rhythmic harmony of his soul, rising up out 
of the depths of his struggle with himself, that led him, in 
his passionate submission to the will of his invisible friends, 
to feel as if he were identical with those friends, as if he 
were himself the "son of man" and the incarnation of 
man's supreme hope. 

It is the emphasis laid by Jesus upon his identity with 
his "father" which has produced the tragic results we 
know. For although this was the personal conception of 
the noblest of all human souls, it remains a proof of how 
much even the soul of Jesus was limited and restricted by 
the malicious power which opposes itself to love. 

The living companions of men are as we have seen a 



238 THE COMPLEX VISION 

necessary answer to the craving of the complex vision for 
some objective standard of beauty and reality, which shall 
give these things an eternal unity and purpose. Such a 
vision is an answer to our desire that the spirit of creative 
love, which is one side of the unfathomable duality, should 
be embodied in personality. 

And we have a right to use the name of Christ in this 
sense ; and to associate it with all that immortal anonymous 
company, so beautiful, so pitiful, so terrible, which the 
name of ''the gods" has, in its turbulent and dramatic 
history, gathered about itself. 

The idea of Christ is older than the life of Jesus; nor 
does the life of Jesus, as it has come down to us in eccle- 
siastical tradition, exhaust or fulfil all the potentialities 
latent in the idea of Christ. What the complex vision 
seems to demand is that the invisible companions of men 
should be regarded as immortal gods. If, therefore, we 
throw all hesitancy and scruple aside and risk the appli- 
cation of the name of Christ to this vision of the sons of the 
universe, then we shall be compelled to regard Christ as 
an immortal God. 

The fact that there must be some objective standard 
which shall satisfy all the passionate demands of the com- 
plex vision is the path by which we reach this conception 
of Christ. But once having reached him he ceases to be 
a mere conception of the intellect, and becomes an objec- 
tive reality which we can touch and appeal to with our 
emotion, our imagination, and our aesthetic sense. But al- 
though Christ as our symbolic image of the invisible com- 
panions, must be assumed to be the objective standard of 
all our ideas of truth, it is obvious that we cannot escape 
from subjectivity in our individual interpretation of his 
deeper and truer vision. 

Thus there are two parallel streams of growth and 
change. There is growth and change in the soul of Christ 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 239 

as he continually approximates nearer and nearer to his 
eternally receding ideal. And there is growth and change 
in the accumulated harmony of our individual ideas about 
his ideal, as each human soul and each generation of hu- 
man souls restates this ideal in terms of its own limited 
vision. 

Each new restatement of this accumulated interpreta- 
tion of the ideal of the son of man brings necessarily with 
it an innate conviction of its truth because it finds an im- 
mediate response in every individual soul in so far as such 
individual souls are able to overcome their intrinsic evil 
or malice. 

What Jesus did for the universe was to recognize in it 
the peculiar nature of that love which is its essential life. 
He would have done yet more for it had he been able to 
disassociate his vision from the conception of an imaginary 
father of the universe and from his traditional interest in 
the tribal god of his ancestors. But Jesus remains the one 
human soul who has revealed to us in his own subjective 
vision the essential secret of the vision of the immortals. 
And that he has done so is proved by the fact that all his 
words and actions have come to be inextricably associated 
with the Christ-idea. 

In this way Jesus remains the profoundest of all human 
philosophers and the subtlest of all human psychologists; 
and although we have the right to disassociate the Christ- 
idea from the sublime illusion of Jesus which led him to 
confuse the invisible companions of humanity with the 
tribal God of the Hebrews, we are compelled to recognize 
that Jesus has done so much for humanity by the depth 
of his psychological insight that we do not experience any 
shock when in the ritual of the Church the name of the son 
of David becomes identical with the name of Christ. 

The essential thing to establish is that there are greater 
depths in the Christ-idea than even Jesus was able to 



240 THE COMPLEX VISION 

fathom ; and that compared with the soul of Jesus or with 
the soul of any other man or god or spiritual entity, the 
figure of Christ has come now at last to be for humanity 
the only god we need; for he is the only god whose love 
for all living things is beyond question and dispute, and 
whose existence is assumed and implied when any soul in 
the universe loves any other soul. 

It is necessary then to do two things. To accept without 
reserve the vision which Jesus had as to the secret of love ; 
because to nothing less than this does the love which we 
possess in our own souls respond. And in the second place 
to be merciless and drastic, even at the risk of pain to the 
weakness of our human flesh, in separating the personality 
of Christ, the immortal god, from the historic figure of the 
traditional Jesus. By doing these two things, and by this 
alone, we establish what the complex vision desires, upon a 
firm ground. For we retain what the vision of Jesus has 
revealed to us as to the inherent nature of the invisible 
companions and we are saved from all controversy as to the 
historic reality of the life of Jesus. 

It does not matter to us whether Jesus ''really lived"; 
or whether, like other great figures, his personality has been 
created by the anonymous instinct of humanity. What 
matters to us is that humanity itself, using the vision of 
Jesus as its organ of research or as the focus point of its 
own passionate clairvoyance has in some way or another 
recognized that the secret of the universe is to be found 
in the unfathomable duality of love and malice. From 
this point, now it has been once reached, the intrinsic na- 
ture of all human souls makes sure that humanity cannot 
go back. And it is because, either by his own sublime in- 
sight or by the accident and chance of history, the figure 
of Jesus has become associated with the reality of the im- 
mortal gods that we are justified in using for our symbol 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 241 

of these sons of the universe no other name than the name 
of Christ. 

We shall, however, be doing wrong to our conception of 
Christ, if, while recognizing that the kind of love, of which 
Jesus revealed the secret, is the essence of Christ's soul, we 
refuse to find in him also many aspects and attributes of 
life which occupy but little place or no place at all in the 
traditional figure of Jesus. 

All that is most beautiful and profound, all that is most 
magical and subtle, in the gods of the ancient world, must 
be recognized as existent in the soul of Christ who is our 
true "Son of the Morning." The earth-magic of the an- 
cient gods must be in him; and the Titanic spirit which 
revolted against such gods must be in him also. The mys- 
tery of the elements must be interwoven with the very stuff 
of his being and the unfathomable depths of Nature must 
be a path for his feet. In him all mythologies and all 
religions must meet and be transcended. He is Prome- 
theus and Dionysus. He is Osiris and Balder. He is the 
great god Pan. "All that we have been, all that we are, 
and all that we hope to be, is centred in him alone." His 
spirit is the creative spirit which moves for ever upon the 
face of the waters. In him all living souls find the object 
of their love. Against him the unfathomable power of evil 
struggles with eternal demonic malice. In his own soul it 
struggles against him ; and in the universe which confronts 
him it struggles against him. His inmost being is made 
up of the duality of this struggle even as is the inmost be- 
ing of all that exists. If it were not for the presence of 
evil in him his passion of love would be as nothing. (For 
without evil there can be no good, and without malice 
there cannot be love!) His soul and our human souls re- 
main the ultimate reality. These alone are concrete, defi- 
nite, actual and personal. All except these is ambiguous, 



242 THE COMPLEX VISION 

half-real and unstable as water. These and the universe 
which they create are the true truth ; and compared with 
these every other "truth" is dubious, shadowy and unsub- 
stantial. 

These are the true truth, because these are personal ; and 
we know nothing in life, and can know nothing, with the 
interior completeness with which we know personality. 
And the essence of that interior knowledge with which we 
know personality is our recognition of the unfathomable 
duality within ourselves. We cannot imagine the good in 
us as existing without the evil in us ; and we cannot imag- 
ine the evil in us as existing without the good in us. 

And this ultimate essence of reality must apply to the 
soul of Christ. And this duality has no reconciliation ex- 
cept the reconciliation that it is a duality in ourselves and 
a duality in him. For both the good and the evil in us 
recede into unfathomable depths. So that the ultimate 
reality of the universe is to be found in the two eternal emo- 
tions which perpetually contradict and oppose one an- 
other; of which the only unity and reconciliation is to be 
found in the fact that they both belong to every separate 
soul; and are the motive power which brings the universe 
into existence ; and in bringing the universe into existence 
find themselves under the domination of time and space. 

Every individual soul in the world is composed of two 
unfathomable abysses. From the limitless depths of each 
of these emanates an emotion which is able to obsess and 
preoccupy the whole field of consciousness. Every indi- 
vidual soul has depths, therefore, which descend into un- 
fathomable recesses ; and we are forced into the conclusion 
that the unfathomable recesses in the soul of Christ are 
subject to the same eternal duality as the souls of men. 

Every movement of thought implies an evocation of the 
opposing passion of these two emotions. For no movement 
of thought can take place without the activity of the com- 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 243 

plex vision; and since one of the basic attributes of the 
complex vision is divided into these two primary emotions, 
we are compelled to conclude that it is impossible to think 
any thought at all without some evocation of the emotion 
of love and some evocation of the emotion of malice. 

The emotion of love is the power that brings together and 
synthesizes those eternal ideas of truth and beauty and 
nobility which find their objective standard in the soul of 
Christ. The emotion of malice is the power that brings 
together and synthesizes and harmonizes those eternal ideas 
of unreality and hideousness and evil with which the love 
of Christ struggles desperately in the unfathomable depths 
of his soul. It matters to us little or nothing that we have 
no name to give to any among the gods except to this god ; 
for in this god, in this companion of men, in this immortal 
helper, the complex vision of man finds all it needs, the 
embodiment of Love itself. 

We arrive, therefore, at the very symbol we desire, at 
the symbol which in tangible and creative power satisfies 
the needs of the soul. We owe this symbol to nothing less 
than the free gift of the gods themselves ; and to the anony- 
mous strivings of the generations. And once having 
reached this symbol, this name of Christ, the same phe- 
nomenon occurs as occurs in the establishment of the real 
existence of the external universe. That, like this, was at 
first only a daring hypothesis, only a supreme act of faith, 
reached by the subjective effort of the innumerable indi- 
vidual souls. But once having been reached, it became, as 
this has become, a definite objective fact, whose reality 
turns out to have been implicit from the beginning. 

Thus the name, the word, which we arrive at as the only 
possible symbol of our hope is found to be, as soon as we 
reach it, no longer merely a symbol but the outward sign 
of an invisible and eternal truth. And thus although it 
remains that we are forced to recognize that the world is 



y 



244 THE COMPLEX VISION 

full of gods and that the Person we name Christ is only 
one of an innumerable company of invisible companions 
to whom in our loneliness we have a right to turn, yet just 
because the vision of humanity has found in Christ a com- 
pleter, subtler, more beautiful, more revolutionary figure 
upon which to fix its hope than it has found in Buddha 
or Confucius or Mahomet, or any other name, the figure 
of Christ has become the supreme and solitary embodiment 
of the Ideal to which we look, and about this figure has 
come to gather itself and focus itself all the hopeless long- 
ing with which the soul of man turns to the souls of the 
immortals. 

These divine people of the abyss, these sons of the uni- 
verse, are for us henceforth and must be now for us for 
ever summed up and embodied in this one figure, the only 
one among them all whose nature and being has been drawn 
so near to us that we can appropriate it to ourselves. 

It remains that the unity of time and space contains an 
immeasurable company of immortals; but of these im- 
mortals only one has been articulated and outlined, and 
so to speak "touched with the hand/' by the troubled 
passion of humanity. Henceforth, therefore, while the 
necessity of the complex vision compels us to think of the 
invisible company of the sons of the universe as a vast 
hierachy of supernatural beings, the necessity of the com- 
plex vision compels us also to recognize, that of this com- 
pany, only one — only one until the end of time — can be 
the true symbol of what our heart desires. 

It is better to think of the evocation of this figure as 
due to the pity of the gods themselves and to the anonymous 
craving of humanity than to think of him as dependent 
upon the historic evidence as to the personality of Jesus. 
The soul requires something more certain than historic 
evidence upon which to base its faith. It requires some- 
thing closer and more certain even than the divine "logoi" 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 245 

attributed to the historic Jesus. It requires a living and 
a personal soul for ever present to the depths of its own 
nature. It requires a living and a personal soul for ever 
ready to answer the cry of its love. The misery and un- 
happiness, the restlessness and pain of all our human 
"loves," is due to the fact that the only eternal response 
to Love as it beats its hands against the barriers set up 
against it, is the embodiment of Love itself as we feel it 
present with us in the figure of Christ. *-^-^ 

/ihe love which draws two human souls together can only 
become eternal and indestructible when it passes beyond 
the love of the two for one another into the love of both 
of them for the Lover who is immortal. This merging of 
the love of human lovers into the love of the immortal 
Lover does not imply the lessening or diminishing of the 
love which draws them together. The nature of this love 
cries out against their separation, cries out that they two 
shall become one. And yet if they actually and in very 
truth became one, that unity in difference which is the very 
essence of love would be destroyed. But though they know 
this well enough there still remains the desperate craving 
of the two that they should become one ; and this is of the 
very nature of love itself. Thus it may be seen that the 
only path by which human lovers can be satisfied is by 
merging their love for one another into their love for 
Christ. In this way, in a sense profounder than mortal 
flesh can know, they actually do become one. They become 
so completely one that no power on earth or above the 
earth can ever separate them. For they are bound to- 
gether by no mortal link but by the eternal love of a soul 
beyond the reach of death. Thus when one of them comes 
to die the love which was of the essence of that soul lives 
on in the soul of Christ ; and when both of them are dead 
it can never be as though their love had not been, for in 
the eternal memory of Christ their love lives on, increas- 



246 THE COMPLEX VISION 

ing the love of Christ for others like themselves and con- 
tinually drawing the transitory and the mortal nearer to 
the eternal and the immortal. 

It therefore becomes evident why it is that the vision of 
the invisible companions which remains our standard of 
reality and of beauty is not broken up into innumerable 
subjective visions but is fixed and permanent and sure. 
All the unfathomable souls of the world, and all souls are 
unfathomable whether they are the souls of plants or ani- 
mals or planets or gods or men, are found, the closer they 
approach one another, to be in possession of the same vi- 
sion. For this immortal vision, in which what we name 
beauty, and what we name "reality," finds its synthesis, 
is found to be nothing less than the secret love. And while 
the great company of the immortal companions are only 
known to us by the figure of one among them, namely by 
the figure of Christ, this figure alone is sufficient to contain 
all that we require of life; for being the embodiment of 
love this figure is the embodiment of life, of which love is 
the creator and the sustainer. 

Thus what the apex-thought of man's complex vision 
reveals is not only the existence of the gods but the fact 
that the vision of the gods is not broken up and divided 
but is one and the same; and is yet for ever growing and 
deepening. And the only measure of the vision of the 
gods which we possess is the figure of Christ; for it has 
come about by reason of the anonymous instinct of hu- 
manity, by reason of the compassion of the immortals, and 
by reason of the divine insight of Jesus, that the figure of 
Christ contains within it every one of those primordial 
ideas from which and towards which, in a perpetual ad- 
vance which is- also a perpetual return, the souls of all 
living things are for ever journeying. 

Whether the souls of men and of beasts, of plants and 
of planetary spheres survive in any form after they are 



THE FIGURE OF CHRIST 247 

dead we know not and can never know. But this at least 
the revelation of the complex vision makes clear, that 
the secret of the whole process is to be found in the mys- 
tery of love; and to the mystery of love we can, at the 
worst, constantly appeal ; for the mystery of love has been 
at last embodied for us in a living figure over whom Death 
has no control. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE ILLUSION OP DEAD MATTER 

The philosophy of the complex vision is based, as I have 
shown, upon nothing less than the whole personality of 
man become conscious of itself in the totality of its rhythmic 
functioning. This personality, although capable of being 
analysed in its constituent elements, is an integral and 
unfathomable reality. And just because it is such a real- 
ity it descends and expands on every side into immeasur- 
able depths and immeasurable horizons. 

We know nothing as intimately and vividly as we know 
personality and every knowledge that we have is either 
a spiritual or a material abstraction from this supreme 
knowledge. This knowledge of personality which is our 
ultimate truth, implies a belief in the integral and real 
existence of what we call the soul. And because person- 
ality implies the soul and because we have no ultimate 
conception of any other reality in the world except the 
reality of personality, therefore we are compelled to as- 
sume that every separate external object in Nature is pos- 
sessed of a soul. 

The peculiar psychological melancholy which sometimes 
seizes us in the presence of inanimate natural objects, such 
as earth and water and sand and dust and rain and vapour, 
objects whose existence may superficially appear to be en- 
tirely chemical or material, is accounted for by the fact 
that the soul in us is baffled and discouraged and repulsed 
by these things because by reason of their superficial ap- 
pearance they convey the impression of complete soulless- 
ness. In the presence of plants and animals and all ani- 

248 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 249 

mate things we are also vaguely conscious of a strange psy- 
chological melancholy. But this latter melancholy is of a 
less poignant character than the former because what we 
seem superficially conscious of is not * ' soullessness ' ' but a 
psychic life which is alien from our life, and therefore 
baffling and obscure. 

In both of these cases, however, as soon as we are bold 
enough to apply the conclusions we have arrived at from 
the analysis of the knowledge which is most vivid and real 
to us, namely, the knowledge of our own soul, this peculiar 
psychological melancholy is driven away. It is a melan- 
choly which descends upon us when in any disintegrated 
moment the creative energy in us, the energy of love in us, 
is overcome by the evil and inertness of the aboriginal 
malice. Under the influence of this inert malice, which 
takes advantage of some lapse or ebb of the creative energy 
in us, the rhythmic activity of our complex vision breaks 
down; and we visualize the world through the attributes 
of reason and sensation alone. And the world, visualized 
through reason and sensation alone, becomes a world of 
uniform and homogeneous monotony, made up either of 
one all-embracing material substance, or of one all-embrac- 
ing spiritual substance. In either case that living plural- 
ity of real separate "souls" which correspond to our own 
soul vanishes away, and a dreary and devastating oneness, 
whether spiritual or chemical, fills the whole field. The 
world which is the emanation of this atrophied and dis- 
torted vision is a world of crushing dreariness ; but it is an 
unreal world because the only vivid and unfathomable 
reality we know is the reality of innumerable souls. The 
curious thing about this world of superficial chemical or 
spiritual uniformity is that it seems the same identical 
world in the case of all separate souls whose complex vi- 
sion is thus distorted by the prevalence of that which op- 
poses itself to creation and by the consequent ebb and 



250 THE COMPLEX VISION 

weakening of the energy of love. It is impossible to be 
assured that this is the case; but all evidence of language 
points towards such an identity of desolation between the 
innumerable separate "universes" of the souls which fill 
the world, when such souls visualize existence through 
reason and sensation alone. 

This also is a portion of the same "illusion of imper- 
sonality" into which the inert malice of the ultimate "re- 
sistance" betrays us with demonic cunning. What man is 
there among us who does not recall some moment of vi- 
sionary disintegration, when, in the presence of both these 
mysteries, an unspeakable depression of this kind has over- 
taken him? He has stood, perhaps, on some wet autumn 
evening, watching the soulless reflection of a dead moon 
in a pond of dead water; while above him the motionless 
distorted trunk of some goblinish tree mocks him with its 
desolate remoteness from his own life. 

At that moment, with his abortive and atrophied complex 
vision, all he sees is the eternal soullessness and deadness 
of matter; dead moonlight, dead water, dead mud and 
slime and refuse, dead mist and vapour, dead earth-mould 
and dead leaves. And while the desolate chemistry of 
nothingness grips him with its dead fingers and he turns 
hopelessly to the silent tree-trunk at his side, that also 
repels him with the chill breath of psychic remoteness; 
and it seems to him that that also is strange and impersonal 
and unconscious; that that also is only a blind pre-de- 
termined portion of some huge planetary life-process that 
has no place for a living soul, but only a place for auto- 
matic impersonal chemistry. Brooding in this way, with 
the eternal malice of the system of things conquering the 
creative impulse in the depths of his soul, he becomes 
obsessed with the idea that not only these isolated portions 
of Nature, but the whole of Nature, is thus alien and re- 
mote and thus given up to a desolate and soulless uniform- 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 251 

ity. Unutterable loneliness takes possession of him and he 
feels himself to be an exile in a dark and hostile assem- 
blage of elemental forces. If at such a moment by means 
of some passionate invocation of the immortal gods, or by 
means of some desperate sinking into his own soul and 
gathering together of the creative energy in him, he is able 
to resist this desolation, how strange and sudden a shifting 
of mood occurs ! He then, by a bold movement of imagina- 
tion, restores the balance of his complex vision; and in a 
moment the spectacle is transfigured. 

The apparently dead pond takes to itself the lineaments 1 
of some indescribable living soul, of which that particular 
portion of elemental being is the outward expression. 
The apparently dead moonlight becomes the magical influ- 
ence of some mysterious " lunar soul" of which the earth's 
silent companions is the external form. The apparently 
dead mud of the pond's edge becomes a living portion of 
that earth-body which is the visible manifestation of the . 
soul of the earth. The motionless tree-trunk at his side 
seems no longer the desolate embodiment of some vague 
" psychic life" utterly alien from his own life but reveals 
to him the immediate magical presence of a real soul there, 
whose personality, though not conscious in the precise man- 
ner in which he is conscious, has yet its own measure of 
complex vision and is mutely struggling with the cruel 
inertness and resistance which blocks the path of the energy 
of life. When once, by the bold synthesis of reason and 
sensation with those other attributes of the complex vision 
which we name instinct, imagination, intuition, and the 
like, the soul itself comes to be regarded as the substratum 
of personal existence, that desolating separation between 
humanity and Nature ceases to baffle us. As long as the 
substratum of personal life is regarded as the physical 
body there must always be this desolating difference and 
this remoteness. 



252 THE COMPLEX VISION 

For in such a case the stress is inevitably laid upon the 
physiological and biological difference between the body 
of a man and the body of the earth or the moon or the 
sun or any plant or animal. But as soon as the sub- 
stratum of personal life is regarded not as the body but 
as the soul it ceases to be necessary to lay so merciless a 
stress upon the difference between man's elaborate physio- 
logical constitution and the simpler chemical constitution 
of organic or inorganic objects. 

If the complex vision is the vision of the soul, if the soul 
uses its bodily sensation as only one among its other in- 
struments of contact with life, then it is obvious that be- 
tween the soul of a man and the soul of a planet or a plant 
there need be no such appalling and desolating gulf as that 
which fills us with such profound melancholy when we re- 
fuse to let the complex vision have its complete rhythmic 
play and insist on sacrificing the revelations made by in- 
stinct and intuition to the falsifying conclusions of rea- 
son and sensation, energizing in arbitrary solitude. 

The "mort-main" or " dead-hand " of that aboriginal 
malice which resists life is directly responsible for this 
illusion of " unconscious matter" through the midst of 
which we grope like outlawed exiles. Reason and the 
bodily senses, conspiring together, are perpetually tempt- 
ing us to believe in the reality of this desolate phantom- 
world of blind material elements ; but the unreality of this 
corpse-life becomes evident directly we consider the reve- 
lation of the complex vision. 

For the complex vision reveals to us that what we call 
''the universe" is a thing which is for ever coming newly 
and freshly into life, for ever being re-born and re-consti- 
tuted by the interplay between the individual soul and the 
"objective mystery." Of the objective mystery itself, 
apart from the individual soul, we are able to say nothing. 

is the discovery and creatioi 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 253 

of the individual soul, there must be as many different 
" universes ' ' as there are living souls. 

Our belief in "one unverse," whose characteristics are 
relatively identical in the case of all the souls which con- 
template it, is a belief which in part results from an orig- 
inal act of faith and in part results from an implicit appeal 
to those "invisible companions" whose concentrated will 
towards "reality" and "beauty" and "nobility" offers 
us our only objective standard of these ideas. From the 
ground, therefore, of this trinity of incomprehensible sub- 
stances, namely the substance which is the substratum of 
the individual soul, the substance which is "the objective 
mystery" out of which the individual soul creates its uni- 
verse, and the substance which is the "medium" or "link" 
which enables these individual souls to communicate with 
one another, emerge the only realities which we can know. 
And since this trinity of incomprehensible substances, thus 
divided one from another, must be thought of as domi- 
nated by the same unity of time and space, it is inconceiv- 
able that they should be anything else than three aspects 
of one and the same incomprehensible substance. From 
this it follows that from the ground of one incomprehen- 
sible substance which in its first aspect is the substratum 
of the soul, in its second aspect is the objective mystery 
confronting the soul, in its third aspect is the medium 
which holds all souls together, there must be evoked all the 
reality which we can conceive. 

And this reality must, from the conclusions we have al- 
ready reached, take two forms. It must take the form o* 
a plurality of subjective "universes" answering to the 
plurality of living souls. And it must take the form of 
one objective "universe," answering to the objective stand- 
ard of truth, beauty, and nobility, together with the oppo- 
sites of these, which is implied in the tacit appeal of all 
individual souls to their "invisible companions." 



254 THE COMPLEX VISION 

In this double reality; the reality of one objective uni- 
verse identical in its appearance to all souls but depend- 
ent for its identity upon an implicit reference to the " in- 
visible companions," and the reality of as many subjective 
universes as there are living souls; in this double reality 
there is obviously no place at all for that phantom-world 
of unconscious "matter," which in the form of soulless ele- 
ments, or soulless organic automata, fills the human mind 
with such devastating melancholy. 

The dead pond with its dead moonlight, with its dead 
mud and its dead snow, is therefore no better than a 
ghastly illusion when considered in isolation from the soul 
or the souls which look forth from it. To the soul of which 
those elements are the "body" neither mud nor water nor 
rain nor earth-mould can appear desolate or dead. To the 
soul which contemplates these things there can be no other 
way of regarding them, as long as the rhythm of its vision 
is unimpeded, than as the outward manifestation of a per- 
sonal life, or of many personal lives, similar in creative 
energy to its own. 

Between the soul, or the souls, of the elements of the 
earth, and the soul of the human spectator there must be, 
if our conclusions are to be held good at all, a natural and 
profound reciprocity. The apparent "deadness," the ap- 
parent automatism of "matter," which projects itself be- 
tween these two and resists with corpse-like opacity their 
reciprocal understanding, must be one of the ghastly illu- 
sions with which the sinister side of the eternal duality un- 
dermines the magic of life. 

But although in its objective isolation, as an absolute en- 
tity, this "material deadness" of earth and water and rain 
and snow and of all disintegrated organic chemistry must 
be regarded as an " illusion, ' ' it would be a falsifying of the 
reality of things to deny that it is an "illusion" to which 
the visions of all souls are miserably subject. They are for 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 255 

ever subject to it because it is precisely this "illusion" 
which the unfathomable power hostile to life for ever 
evokes. 

Nor must we for a moment suppose that this material 
objectivity, this pond, these leaves, this mud, this snow, are 
altogether unreal. Their reality is demanded by the com- 
plex vision and to deny their reality would be the gesture 
of madness. They are only unreal, they are only an "illu- 
sion," when they are considered as existing independently 
of the "souls" of which they are the "body." As the ex- 
pression and manifestation of such "souls" they are en- 
tirely real. They are indeed, in this sense, as real as our 
own human body. 

The human soul, when it suffers from that malignant 
power which has its positive and external existence in the 
soul itself, feels itself to be absolutely alone in the midst 
of a dark chaotic welter of monstrous elemental forces. In 
a mood of this kind the thought of the huge volumes of 
soulless water which we call "oceans" and "seas" crushes 
us with a devastating melancholy. The thought of the in- 
terminable deserts of "dead" sand and the vast polar ice 
fields and the monstrous excrescences that we call "moun- 
tains" have the same effect. But the supreme example of 
the kind of material ghastliness which I am trying to indi- 
cate, is, as may easily be surmised, nothing less than the 
appalling thought of the unfathomable spatial gulfs through 
which our whole stellar system moves. Here also, in this 
supreme insistence of objective "deadness," the situation 
is relieved when we realize that this unthinkable space is 
nothing more than the material expression of that inde- 
finable "medium" which holds all souls together. 

Moreover we must remember that these stellar gulfs 
cannot be thought of except as the habitation of innumerable 
living souls, each one of which is using this very "space" 
as the ground of its creation of the many-coloured impas- 



256 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sioned ' 'universe" which is its own dwelling. In all these 
instances of "objective deadness," whether great or small, 
we must not forget that the thing which desolates us and 
fills us with so intolerable a nostalgia is a thing only half 
real, a thing whose full reality depends upon the soul which 
contemplates it and upon the soul's implicit assumption 
that its truth is the truth of those "invisible companions" 
who supply us with our perpetually renewed and recon- 
stituted standard of what is ' ' good ' ' and what is ' ' evil. ' ' 

There is an abominably vivid example of the kind of 
melancholy I have in my mind, which, although obviously 
less common to normal human experience than the forms 
of it I have so far attempted to suggest, is as a rule even 
more crushing in its cruelty. I refer to the sight of a 
dead human body; and in a less degree to the sight of a 
dead animal or a dead plant. 

A human corpse laid out in its coffin, or nailed down in 
its coffin, how exactly does the particular attitude towards 
life, which for convenience' sake I name the philosophy 
of the complex vision, find itself regarding that? Such 
a body, deserted by its living soul, is obviously no longer 
the immediate and integral expression of a personal life. 
Is it therefore no more than a shred or shard or husk or 
remnant of inconceivably soulless matter? The gods for- 
bid ! Certainly and most assuredly it is more than that. 

An isolated heterogeneous mass of dead chemistry is a 
monstrous illusion which only exists for us when the weak- 
ness of our creative energy and the power of the original 
malice in the soul destroys our vision. This dead body 
lying in its wooden coffin is certainly possessed of no more 
life than the inanimate boards of the coffin in which it lies. 
But the inanimate boards of the coffin, together with the 
inanimate furniture of the house or room that contains it, 
and the bricks and stones and mortar of such a house, are 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 257 

themselves nothing less than inevitable portions of the 
vast earth-body of our planetary globe. 

And this planetary globe, this earth upon which we live, 
cannot under any conceivable kind of reasoning to which 
imagination has contributed its share, be regarded as a dead 
or a soulless thing. In its isolated integrity, as a separate 
integral personality, the soul has deserted the body and 
left it "dead." But it is only "dead" when considered 
in isolation from the surrounding chemistry of planetary 
life. And to consider it in this way is to consider it falsely. 
For from the moment it ceases to be the expression of the 
life of an individual human soul, it becomes the expression 
— through every single phase of its chemical dissolution — 
of the life of the planet. 

In so far as the human soul, which has deserted it, is 
concerned it is assuredly no better than a dead husk; but 
in so far as the soul of the planet is concerned it is an 
essential portion of that planet's living body and in this 
sense is not dead at all. 

Its chemical elements, as they resolve themselves slowly 
back into their planetary accomplices, are part and parcel 
of that general "body of the earth" which is in a state 
of constant movement, and which has the "soul of the 
earth" as its animating principle of personality. And 
just as the human corpse, when the soul has deserted it, 
becomes a portion of those chemical elements which are the 
body of the planet's "personal soul," so do the dead bodies 
of animals and plants and trees become portions of the 
same terrestrial bodies. 

Thus strictly speaking there is no single moment when 
any material form or body can be called "dead." In- 
stantaneously with the departure of its own individual 
soul it is at once ' ' possessed ' ' by the soul of that planetary 
globe from whose chemistry it drew its elemental life and 
from whose chemistry, although the form of it has changed, 



258 THE COMPLEX VISION 

it still draws its life. For it is no fantastic speculation 
to affirm that every living thing whether human or other- 
wise plays, while it lives, a triple part upon the world 
stage. 

It is in the first place the vehicle of the individual soul. 
It is in the second place the medium of the "spiritual 
vampirizing" of the invisible planetary spirits. And it is 
in the third place a living portion of that organic elemental 
chemistry which is the body of the terrestrial soul. Thus 
it becomes manifest that that "illusion of dead matter" 
which fills the human soul with so profound a melancholy 
is no more than an everlasting trick of the malice of the 
abyss. 

And the despair which sometimes results from it is a 
despair which issues from no "dead matter" but from 
the terrible living depths of the soul itself. It is from a 
consideration of the especial kind of melancholy evoked 
in us by the illusion of "objective deadness" that we are 
enabled to analyse those peculiar imaginative feelings which 
sometime or another affect us all. I refer to the extraor- 
dinary tenacity with which we cling to our bodily form, 
however grotesque it may be, and the difficulty we expe- 
rience in disassociating our living soul from its particular 
envelope or habitation; and the tendency which we have, 
in spite of this, to imagine ourselves transferred to an 
alien body. For the soul in us has the power of "think- 
ing itself" into any other body it may please to select. 

And there is no reason why we should be alarmed at 
such an imaginative power ; or even associate its fantastic 
realization with any terror of madness. The invisible en- 
tity within us which says " I am I " can easily be conceived 
as suddenly awakening out of sleep and discovering, to its 
astonishment, that its visible body has suffered a bewilder- 
ing transformation. 

Such a transformation can be conceived as almost un- 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 259 

limited in its humorous and disconcerting possibilities. 
But no such transformation of the external envelope of 
the soul, whether into the form of an animal or a plant or 
a god, need be conceived of as necessarily driving us into 
insanity. The "I am I" would remain the same in regard 
to its imagination, instinct, intuition, emotion, self-con- 
sciousness and the rest. It would be only " changed " in 
regard to sensation, which is a thing immediately depend- 
ent upon the particular and special senses of the human 
body. 

This is a truth to the reality of which the wandering 
fancies of every human child bear ample witness; not to 
speak of the dreams of those childlike tribes of the race, 
who in our progressive insolence we are pleased to name 
11 uncivilized. ' ' The deeper we dig into the tissue of con- 
voluted impressions that make up our universe the more 
vividly do we become aware that our only redemption from 
sheer insanity lies in ' ' knowing ourselves ' ' ; in other words, 
in keeping a drastic and desperate hold upon what, in the 
midst of ambiguity and treachery, we are definitely as- 
sured of. 

And the only thing we are definitely assured of, the only 
thing which we really know "on the inner side," and with 
the kind of knowledge which is unassailable, is the reality 
of our soul. We know this with a vividness completely 
different from the vividness of any other knowledge because 
this is not what we feel or see or imagine or think but 
what we are. And all feeling, all seeing, all imagining 
and all thinking are only attributes of this mysterious 
"something" which is our integral self. 

To the superficial judgment there is always something 
weird and arbitrary about this belief in our own soul. 
And this apparent weirdness arises from the fact that our 
superficial judgments are the work of reason and sensation 
arrogating to themselves the whole field of consciousness. 



260 THE COMPLEX VISION 

But directly we bring to bear upon this mass of impres- 
sions which is our "universe" the full rhythmic play of 
our complete identity this weirdness and arbitrariness 
disappear and we realize that we are, not this thought or 
this sensation or even this stream of thoughts and sensa- 
tions, but the definite living ' 'monad" which gives these 
things their only link of continuity and permanence. And 
it is better to accept experience, even though it refuses to 
resolve itself into any rational unity, rather than to leave 
experience in the distance and permit our reason to evolve 
its desired unity out of its own rules and limitations. 

We must readily admit that to take all the attributes of 
personality and to make them adhere in the mysterious 
substratum of the soul rather than in the little cells of the 
brain, seems to the superficial judgment a weird and arbi- 
trary act. But the more closely we think of what we are 
doing when we make this assumption the more inevitable 
does such an assumption appear. 

We are driven by the necessity of the case to find some 
"point," or at least some "gap" in thought and the sys- 
tem of things, where mind and matter meet and are fused 
with one another. Absolute consciousness does not help 
us to explain the facts of experience; because "facing" 
absolute consciousness, directly it isolates itself, we are 
compelled to recognize the presence of "something else," 
which is the material or object of which absolute con- 
sciousness is conscious. 

And what we do when we assume the little cells of the 
physical brain to be the point in space or "the gap in 
thought" where mind and matter meet and become one is 
simply to place these two worlds in close juxtaposition and 
then assert that they are one. But this placing them side 
by side and asserting that they are one does not make 
them one. They are just as far apart as ever. The cells 
of the brain remain material and the phenomenon of con- 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 261 

sciousness remains immaterial and they are still as remote 
from one another and as "unfused" as if consciousness 
were outside of time and space altogether. 

It is only when we come to regard the "fusion-point" of 
these two things as being itself a living and personal thing ; 
it is only when we come to regard the substratum of the 
soul as a mysterious "something" which is, at one and the 
same time, both what we call "mind" and what we call 
"matter," that the difficulty I have described disappears. 
For in this case we are dealing with something which, un- 
like the little cells of the brain, is totally invisible and 
totally beyond all scientific analysis; and yet with some- 
thing which, because it is affected by bodily sensations 
and because it is under the sway of time and space, cannot 
be regarded as utterly outside the realm of material sub- 
stance. We are in fact, in this case, dealing with some- 
thing which we feel to be the integral and ultimate real- 
ity of ourselves, as we certainly do not feel the little cells 
of the brain to be ; and we are dealing with something that 
is no mere stream of impressions, but is the concrete per- 
manent reality which gives to all impressions, whether ma- 
terial or immaterial, their unity and coherence. 

When once we are put into possession of this, when once 
we come to recognize our invisible soul as the reality which 
is our true self, it is found to be no longer ridiculous and 
arbitrary to endow this soul with all those various at- 
tributes, which, after all, are only various aspects of that 
unique personality which is the personality of the soul. 
To say "the soul has imagination," or "the soul has in- 
stinct," or "the soul has an aesthetic sense," has only a ridic- 
ulous sound when under the pressure of the abysmal malice 
which opposes itself to life we fall into the habits of per- 
mitting those usurping accomplices, pure reason and pure 
sensation, to destroy the rhythmic harmony of the complex 
vision. 



262 THE COMPLEX VISION 

When once we are in full possession of our own soul it is 
no mere fanciful speculation but an inevitable act of faith 
which compels us to envisage the universe as a thing 
crowded with invisible souls, who in some degree or other 
resemble our own. If this is ' ' anthropomorphism, ' ' though 
strictly strictly speaking it ought to be called "pan- 
psychism," then it is impossible for us to be too anthro- 
'morphic. For in this way we are doing the only philo- 
sophical thing we have a right to do — namely, interpreting 
the less known in the terms of the more known. 

When we seek to interpret the soul, which we vividly 
know, in terms of chemical or spiritual abstractions of 
which we have no direct knowledge but which are merely 
rationalized symbols, we are proceeding in an illegitimate 
and unphilosophical manner to interpret the more known 
in terms of the less known, which is in the true sense 
ridiculous. 

The only escape from that profound melancholy so easily 
engulfed in sheer insanity, which is the result of submis- 
sion to "the illusion of dead matter," lies in this tenacious 
hold upon, the concrete identity of the soul. So closely 
are we linked, by reason of the chemistry of our mortal 
body, to every material-element; that it is only too easy 
for us to merge our personal life by a perverted use of the 
imagination in that phantom- world of supposedly "dead 
matter" which is the illusive projection of the abysmal 
malice. 

Thus just as the soul is driven by extreme physical pain 
to relinquish its identity and to become ' ' an incarnate sen- 
sation," so the soul is driven by the power of malice to 
relinquish its centrifugal force and to become the very 
mud and slime and excremental debris which it has en- 
dowed with an illusive soullessness. 

The clue to the secret pathology of these moods, to whose 
brink reason and sensation have led us and into whose 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 263 

abyss perverted imagination has plunged us, is therefore 
to be found in the unfathomable duality of good and evil. 
If it seems to the kind of mind that demands " rational 
unity" at all costs, even at the cost of truth to experience, 
that this duality cannot be left unreconciled, the answer 
which the philosophy of the complex vision must make, is 
that any reconciliation of such a sort, any reduction to 
monistic unity of the eternal adversaries out of whose strug- 
gle life itself springs, would bring life itself back to noth- 
ingness. 

The argument that because, in the eternal process of 
destruction and creation, life or love or what we call "the 
good" depends for its activity upon death or malice or 
what we call "evil," these opposites are one and the same, 
is shown to be utterly false when one thinks of the analogy 
of the struggle between the sexes. Because the activity 
of the male depends upon the existence of the female, that 
is no reason for concluding that the male and the female are 
one and the same thing. 

Because "good" becomes more "good" out of its conflict 
with "evil," that does not mean that "good" is responsi- 
ble for the existence of "evil"; any more than because 
"evil" becomes more "evil" out of its conflict with 
"good" does it mean that "evil" is responsible for the 
existence of "good." Neither is responsible for the exist- 
ence of the other. They are both positive and real and 
they are both eternal. They are both unfathomable ele- 
ments in every personal individual soul, whether of man 
or plant or animal or god or demi-god that has ever 
existed or will ever come to exist. 

The prevalent idea that because good "in the long run" 
and over vast spaces of time shows itself to be a little — 
just a little — more powerful than evil, evil must be re- 
garded as only a form of good or a necessary negation of 
good is a fallacy derived from the illusion that life is the 



264 THE COMPLEX VISION 

creation of a " parent' ' of the universe whose nature is 
absolutely "good." Such a fallacy takes for granted that 
somewhere and somehow ' ' Good ' ' will finally triumph over 
"evil." 

The revelation of the complex vision destroys this fal- 
lacy. Such a complete triumph of "good" over "evil" 
would mean the end of everything that exists because 
everything that exists depends upon this abysmal struggle. 
But for personalities who are able to recognize that the 
mere fact of their being alive is already a considerable 
victory of "good" over "evil," there is nothing over- 
whelming in the thought that "good" can never com- 
pletely overcome "evil." It is enough that life has given 
them life; and that in the perpetually renewed struggle 
between love and malice they find at the rare moments 
when love overcomes malice a flood of happiness which 
brings with it "the sensation of eternity." 

For such souls eternity is here and now; and no antici- 
pated absolute triumph of the "good" in the world over 
the "evil" can compare for a moment with the indescrib- 
able happiness which this "sensation of eternity" brings. 
It is this happiness, evoked by the rhythmic play of the 
soul's apex-thought in its supreme hours, which alone, 
even in memory, can destroy "the illusion of dead mat- 
ter." 

The psychological situation brought about by the fact 
that this illusion is a perpetually recurrent one and a thing 
that is always liable to return whenever reason and sensa- 
tion are driven to isolate themselves is a situation a good 
deal more complicated than I have so far indicated. It is 
complicated by the fact that although in certain moods 
the contemplation of "the illusion of dead matter" pro- 
duces profound melancholy, in other moods it produces a 
kind of demonic joy. 

It seems as though the melancholy mood, which carried 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 265 

to an extreme limit borders on absolute despair, comes about 
when the creative energy in our soul, although under the 
momentary dominance of what resists creation, is still, so 
to speak, the master of our will. 

Under such circumstances the will, still resolutely turned 
towards life, is confronted by what appears to be the very 
embodiment of death. Under these conditions the will is 
baffled, perplexed, defeated and outraged. It beats in vain 
against the "inert mass" which malice has projected; and 
feels itself powerless to overcome it. It then turns furi- 
ously round upon the very substratum of the soul and 
rends and tears at that, in a mad effort to reach the secret 
of a phantom-world which seems to hold no secret. If 
some sort of relief does not come, such relief for instance 
as physical sleep, the inert misery of the submission of the 
will, following upon such a desperate struggle, may easily 
drift into a deadly apathy, may easily approach the borders 
of insanity. 

But there is another condition under which the soul may 
confront "the illusion of dead matter.' ' This condition 
comes about when the will, instead of being turned towards 
creation, is definitely turned towards the opposite of crea- 
tion. It is impossible for the will to remain in this con- 
dition for more than a limited time. Some outward or in- 
ward shock, some drastic swing of the psychic pendulum, 
must sooner or later restore the balance and bring the will 
back to that wavering and indecisive state — poised like the 
point of a compass between the two extremes — which seems 
to be its normal attitude. 

Any human will unchangeably directed towards "the 
good" would be the will of a soul that in its inherent 
depths were already "absolutely good"; and this, as we 
have seen, is an impossible phenomenon. The utmost 
reach of "wickedness" that any soul, whether it be the 
soul of a man or of a god, can attain to, is a recurrent 



266 THE COMPLEX VISION 

concentration of the will upon evil and a recurrent over- 
coming, for relatively increasing spaces of time, of the 
power of love. This incomplete and constantly inter- 
rupted concentration upon evil is the nearest approach to 
"the worship of Satan' ' which any will is able to reach. 
The exquisite pleasure, therefore, culminating in a kind of 
insane ecstasy, which the soul can enjoy when, in the 
passion of its evil will, it leaps to welcome "the illusion of 
dead matter,' ' is a pleasure that in the nature of things 
cannot last. And the condition of inert malignant apathy 
which follows such an "ecstasy of evil" is perhaps the 
nearest approach to a consciousness of "eternal death" 
which the soul can know. 

And it is in this malignant apathy, rather than in the 
demonic exultation of the mood that preceded it, that the 
extreme opposite of love finds its culmination. For in its 
hour of demonic exultation, when the will to evil buries 
itself with insane joy in "the illusion of dead matter," it 
is drawing savagely upon the energy of life. It corrupts 
such energy as it draws upon it and distorts it from its 
natural functions; but the energy itself, although "pos- 
sessed" by the abysmal malice, is living and intense; and 
therefore cannot be regarded as so entirely the opposite 
of love as that inert condition of malignant lifelessness 
which inevitably succeeds it. 

The demonic ecstasy, full of invincible magnetism, which 
looks forth from the countenance of a soul obsessed with 
evil, has much more in common with the magnetic exulta- 
tion of a soul possessed with love than has that ghastly 
inertness, with its insane malignant attraction to death. 
For out of the countenance of this latter looks forth every- 
thing that is hostile to life; and its expression has in it 
the obscene cunning, mixed with frozen despair, of a 
corpse which has become utterly dehumanized. 

It is frequently a matter of surprise to minds whose 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 267 

view of what is "good" has excluded the concept of energy 
that persons obviously under the obsession of "evil" are 
able to display such immense reserves of inexhaustible 
power. But this surprise disappears when it is realized 
that such "worshippers of Satan" are drawing upon the 
creative energy and corrupting it, in the process of draw- 
ing upon it, by the malignant power which resists creation. 

The "illusion of dead matter" conceived as we have 
conceived it, as a thing made up of unconscious chemical 
elements, is after all only one aspect of the phantom-world 
of illusive soullessness which the abysmal malice delights 
to project. It is only to particular sensitive natures that 
this peculiar "despair of the inanimate" takes the form of 
mud or sand or refuse or water or dead planetary bodies 
or empty space. 

To other natures it may take the form of those innumer- 
able off-shoots of economic necessity, which are not them- 
selves necessary either to human life or human welfare but 
which are the arbitrary creations of economic avarice di- 
vorced from necessity and indulged in out of an inert hatred 
of what is beautiful and real. Any labour, whether mental 
or physical, which directly satisfies the economic needs of 
humanity carries with it the unfathomable thrill of creative 
happiness. But when we come to consider those innumer- 
able forms of financial and commercial enterprise which 
in no way satisfy human needs but exist only for the sake 
of exploitation we find ourselves confronted by a weight 
of unreal soulless hideousness which by reason of the fact 
that it is deliberately protected by organized society is 
a more devastating example of "the thing which is in the 
way" than any amount of mud and litter and refuse and 
excremental debris. For this unproductive commercial- 
ism, this "unreal reality" projected by the malignant 
power which resists creation, is not only an obscene outrage 
to the aesthetic sense; it is actually an assassination of 



268 THE COMPLEX VISION 

life. When, therefore, a philosopher who uses the com- 
plex vision of the soul as his organ of research is asked 
the question, ' ' where are we to look for the type of human 
being most entirely evil?" the answer which he is com- 
pelled to give is not a little surprising to many minds. 

For there are many minds whose physiological timidity 
corrupts their judgment, and who lack the clairvoyance to 
unmask with infallible certainty that look of sneering 
apathy which is the pure expression of malice. And to 
such minds some wretched devil of a criminal, driven to 
crime by an insane perversion of the creative instinct — 
for creation and destruction are not the true opposites — 
might easily seem the ultimate embodiment of evil. 

Whereas the particular type of human being from whom 
the philosopher of the complex vision would draw his stand- 
ard of evil would be a type very different from any per- 
verted type even from those whose mania might take the 
form of erotic cruelty. It would be a type whose recur- 
rent "evil" would take the form of a sneering and ma- 
lignant inertness, the form of a cold and sarcastic dis- 
paragement of all intense feeling. It would be a type 
entirely obsessed by "the illusion of dead matter"; not 
so much the "illusion of dead matter" where Nature is con- 
cerned, but where the economic struggle has resulted in 
some unnecessary and purely commercial activity, alto- 
gether divorced from the basic necessities of human life. 
A person of this type would, in his evil moods, be more 
completely dominated by a malignant resistance to every 
movement of the creative spirit than any other type, unless 
it were perhaps one whom the heavy brutality of "official- 
dom" had blunted into inhuman callousness. 

Compared with persons such as these, by whom no actual 
positive "wickedness" may have ever been perpetrated, 
the confessed criminal or the acknowledged pervert re- 
mains far less committed to the depths of evil. For in 



THE ILLUSION OF DEAD MATTER 269 

persons who have habitually lent themselves to "the illu- 
sion of dead matter/ ' whether in regard to Nature or in 
regard to commercial or financial exploitation, there oc- 
curs a kind of " death-in-life ' ' which gives the sneering 
malignity of the abyss its supreme opportunity; whereas 
in the souls of those who have committed ' ' crimes, ' ' or have 
been guilty of passionate cruelty, there may easily remain 
a vivid and sensitive response to some form of reality or 
beauty, or self-annihilating love. 

For "the illusion of dead matter' ' is the most formi- 
dable expression of evil which we know; and it can only 
be destroyed by the magic of that creative spirit whose 
true "opposite" is not hatred or cruelty or violence or de- 
struction, but the motiveless power of a deadly obscurant- 
ism. 



CHAPTER XII 

PAIN AND PLEASURE 

Since neither pleasure nor pain can be experienced with- 
out consciousness; and since consciousness finds its sub- 
stratum not in the body but in the soul; we are driven to 
the conclusion that what we call the capacity of the body 
for pleasure and pain is really the capacity of the soul 
for pleasure and pain. But the capacity of the soul for 
pleasure and pain is not confined to its functioning through 
the body. Sensation, that is to say, the use of the bodily 
senses, gives the soul one particular form of pain and one 
particular form of pleasure; but that the soul possesses 
other forms of pleasure and pain independently of the body 
is proved by the psychological fact that intense bodily pain 
is sometimes accompanied by intense spiritual pleasure 
and intense bodily pleasure is sometimes accompanied by 
intense spiritual pain. 

"What is called "the pursuit of pleasure,' ' that rational- 
istic abstraction from our real psychological experience, 
that abstraction which has been made the basis of the false 
philosophy called " hedonism/ ' caamot stand for a mo- 
ment against the revelation of the complex vision. Under 
certain rare and morbid conditions, when reason and sen- 
sation, in their conspiracy of assassination, have usurped 
for a while the whole field of consciousness, such a "pur- 
suit of pleasure" may become a dominant motive. But 
even under these conditions there often comes a shifting 
of the stage according to which the pleasure-seeker, sick 
to death of pleasure, deliberately "pursues" pain. 

If it be said that this change is no real change because 

270 






PAIN AND PLEASURE 271 

what is then pursued is the pleasure of "contrast" or even 
"the pleasure of pain," the retort to such reasoning can 
only be that in this case the whole hedonistic theory has 
been given up; for what is really then "pursued" is 
neither pleasure nor pain but the sensation of novelty or 
the sensation of new experience. 

Pleasure and pain are emotionalized sensations accom- 
panying various physical and mental states. The psycho- 
logical truth about their "pursuit" is simply that we "pur- 
sue" certain objects or conditions because of their imme- 
diate attractiveness or "attractive terribleness," and that 
the accompanying pleasure becomes first a kind of orches- 
tral background to our pursuit; and then, later, becomes, 
by the action of the law of association, part and parcel of 
the thing's attractiveness or "attractive terribleness." 
Thus what really occurs is precisely opposite to the hedon- 
ist's contention. For the thing "pursued" swallows up 
and appropriates to itself the pleasure and pain of the 
pursuit; and, by the law of association, becomes more 
vividly, even than at the start the motive force which lures 
us. 

The most ghastly, the most obscene, the most intolerable 
thing in the world is when the pain of pure sensation, the 
pain of the body, is accentuated to such a pitch of atrocious 
suffering that the other attributes of the soul are annihi- 
lated; and the humanity of the person thus suffering is 
temporarily destroyed; so that what "lives" at such a 
moment is not a person at all but an incarnate pain. 

TJiat this ultimate ghastliness, this dehumanization by 
pain, can only occur where the aboriginal malice of the 
soul has previously weakened the soul's independent life, 
is proved by the fact that the most atrocious tortures have 
been successfully endured, even unto the point of death, by 
such as have been martyrs for an idea. And the reason 
of this endurance, the reason why, in the case of such mar- 



272 THE COMPLEX VISION 

tyrizing, the victim has been able to resist dehumaniza- 
tion is found in the fact that the soul's creative energy 
or the power of love has been so great that it has been able 
to assert its independence of bodily torment, even to the 
last moment of human identity. 

Since pain and pleasure, although so often the direct 
evocation of the soul's attribute of bodily sensation, are al- 
ways composed of the primordial "stuff" of emotion; and 
since emotion is a projection of the soul independently of 
the body, it is natural that the soul should, in the reverse 
manner, colour its emotion with the memory of sensation. 
Thus it follows that although it is possible for the soul, 
when its emotional feeling is outraged or excited, to ex- 
perience pain or pleasure apart from sensation, there is 
usually present in such an emotional pain or pleasure a 
residual element of sensation; for the soul is not a thing 
which simply "possesses" certain functions; but a thing 
which is present in some degree or other in all its various 
aspects of energy. 

"What we call "memory" is nothing more than the plastic 
consciousness of personal identity and continuity. And 
when once the pain or pleasure of a bodily sensation has 
been lodged in the soul, that pain or pleasure becomes an 
integral portion of the soul's life, to be worked upon and 
appropriated for good or evil by the soul's intrinsic dual- 
ity. 

Thus although the creative energy in the soul, emerging 
from fathomless abysses, can enable the soul to endure 
until death the most infernal torments, the fact remains 
that since the attribute of sensation, which depends en- 
tirely upon the existence of the bodily senses, is one of the 
soul 's basic attributes and has its ground in the very sub- 
stratum of the soul, the sensations of pain and pleasure 
whether coloured by emotion and imagination or left 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 273 

"pure" in the clear element of consciousness, are sensa- 
tions from which the soul cannot escape. 

From this we are forced to conclude that to affirm that 
the soul can remain wholly untouched and unaffected by 
bodily pain or pleasure is ridiculous. Bodily pain and 
pleasure are the soul's pain and pleasure; because the 
attribute of sensation, through which the bodily senses feed 
the soul, is not the body's attribute of sensation but the 
soul's attribute of sensation. 

To say, therefore, that the soul can "conquer" the body 
or be "indifferent" to the body is as ridiculous as to say 
that the body can "conquer" the soul or be "indifferent" 
to the soul. The fact that the attribute of sensation is a 
basic attribute of the soul and that the attribute of sensa- 
tion is dependent upon the bodily senses must inevitably 
imply that the pressure or impact of the bodily senses de- 
scend to the profoundest depths of the soul. 

The thing that "conquers" pain in the invincible mar- 
tyr is love, or "the energy of creation," in the soul. The 
abysmal struggle is not between the soul and the body or 
between the flesh and the spirit, but between the power 
of life and love, in the body and the soul together, and the 
power of death or malice, in the body and the soul to- 
gether. 

What we are compelled to assume with regard to those 
"sons of the universe," whose existence affords a basis for 
the objectivity of the "ultimate ideas," is that, with them, 
what I have called "the eternal idea of the body" takes 
the place in their complex vision of our actual physical 
body. Their complex vision must be regarded, if our 
philosophy is to remain boldly and shamelessly anthropo- 
morphic, as possessing, even as our own, the basic attribute 
of sensation. 

But since their essential invisibility, and consequent upon 



274 THE COMPLEX VISION 

this their ubiquity under the dominant categories of time 
and place, precludes any possibility of their incarnation, 
we are compelled to postulate that their complex vision's 
attribute of sensation, in the absence of any bodily senses, 
finds its contact with "the objective mystery" and with 
the objective "universe" in some definite and permanent 
"intermediary" which serves in their case the same primal 
necessity as is served in our case by the human body. 

If no such "intermediary" existed for them, we should 
be compelled to relinquish the idea that they possessed a 
complex vision at all, for not only the attribute of sensa- 
tion, but the attribute of emotion also, demands for its ac- 
tivity something that shall represent the human body and 
occupy in their objective "universe" the place occupied 
by our physical bodies in our "universe." 

As we have already shown, this primary demand for the 
"eternalizing of flesh and blood" is a demand which springs 
from the profoundest depths of the soul, for it is a demand 
which springs from the creative energy itself, the eternal 
protagonist in the world-drama. We must conclude, there- 
fore, that although these super-human children of Nature 
cannot in the ordinary sense incarnate themselves in flesh 
and blood they can and do appropriate to themselves out 
of the surrounding body of the ether, and out of the body 
of any other living thing they approach, a certain attenu- 
ated essence of flesh and blood which, though invisible to us, 
supplies with them the place of our human body. This, 
therefore, is the "intermediary" which, in the "invisible 
companions" of our planetary struggle, occupies the place 
which is occupied by the physical element in our human 
life. And this is evoked by nothing less than that • ' eternal 
idea of the body," or "that eternal idea of flesh and 
blood," which the creative energy of love demands. A 
very curious and interesting possibility follows from this 
assumption ; namely, that by a process which might be called 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 275 

a process of "spiritual vampirizing" the same creative 
passion which demands satisfaction in the eternalizing of 
"the idea of the body" actually suffers, by means of its 
vivid sympathy with living bodies, the very pains and 
pleasures through which these bodies pass. 

The possibility that "the invisible companions, ' ' or in 
more traditional language that the "immortal gods," 
should be driven by the passion of their creative love, to 
suffer vicarious pain and pleasure through the living bod- 
ies of all organic existences, is a possibility that derives a 
certain support from two considerations, both of which are 
drawn directly from human experiences. It is certainly 
a matter of common human experience to be conscious, for 
good and for evil, of a kind of obsession of one's body by 
some sort of spiritual power. We may regard these mo- 
ments of obsession, with their consequent exhilaration or 
profound gloom, as due purely to the activity of our own 
soul; and doubtless very often this is the explanation of 
them. But it is conceivable also that such obsessions are 
actually due to the presence near us and around us of the 
"high immortal ones." 

That when we experience this "spiritual vampirizing" 
of our mortal bodies by immortal companions, such an 
obsession is not necessarily "for good," is a thing inevi- 
tably implied in our primary conception of personality. 
For although a purely demonic personality is an impossi- 
bility, owing to the fact that personality is, in itself, an 
achieved triumph over evil, it must still remain true that 
the eternal duality of creation and "what resists creation" 
must find an arena in the soul of an "immortal" even as 
it finds an arena in the soul of a "mortal." 

Therefore we are driven to regard it as no fantastic 
speculation but as only too reasonable a possibility, that 
when a physical depression takes possession of us it is due 
to this "spiritual vampirizing," in an evil sense, by the 



276 THE COMPLEX VISION 

power of some immortal whose c 'malice' ' at that particular 
moment has overcome "love." But just as the power of 
physical pain may be dominated and overcome by the 
energy of love arising from the depths of our own soul, 
so this vampirizing by the malice of an "invisible com- 
panion," may be dominated and overcome by the energy 
of love from the depths of our own soul. 

It may indeed be regarded as certain that it is when the 
malice in our own soul is in the ascendant, rather than the 
love, that we fall victims to this kind of obsession. For 
evil eternally attracts evil ; and it is no wild nor erratic 
fancy to maintain that the malice in the human soul nat- 
urally draws to itself by an inevitable and tragic reci- 
procity the malice in the souls of the "immortal compan- 
ions. ' ' 

The second consideration derived from human expe- 
rience which supports this view of the vicarious pain and 
pleasure experienced by the gods through the bodies of 
all organic entities is the psychological fact of our own 
attitude towards plants and animals. Any sensitive per- 
son among us will not hesitate to admit that in watching 
animals suffer, he has suffered with such animals ; or again, 
that in watching a branch torn from its trunk, leaving an 
open wound out of which the sap oozes, he has suffered with 
the suffering of the tree. And just as the phenomenon of 
bodily obsession by some immortal god may be either "for 
good" or "for evil" as our own soul dictates, so the sym- 
pathy which we feel for plants and animals may be either 
"for good" or "for evil." 

And this also applies to the relation between these bodi- 
less "immortals" and the bodies of all organic planetary 
life. According to the revelation of the complex vision, 
with its emphasis upon the ultimate duality as the supreme 
secret of life, both pain and pleasure are instruments, in 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 277 

the hands of love, for rousing the soul out of that sleep of 
death or semi-death which is the abysmal enemy. 

The philosophies which oppose pain to pleasure, and 
insist upon the "good" of pain and the "evil" of pleas- 
ure, are no less misleading than the philosophies which 
oppose flesh to spirit, or matter to mind, calling the one 
"good" and the other "evil." Such philosophies have 
permitted that basic attribute of the complex vision which 
we call conscience to usurp the place occupied, in the total 
rhythm, by imagination ; with the result of a complete falsi- 
fying of the essential values. 

In a question of such deadly import as this, we have, 
more than ever, to make our appeal to those rare moments 
of illumination which we have attained when the rhythmic 
intensity of the arrow-point of thought was most concen- 
trated and piercing. And the testimony of these moments 
is given with no uncertain sound. In the great hours of 
our life, and I think all human experiences justify this 
statement, both pain and pleasure are transcended and flung 
into a subordinate and irrelevant place. Something which 
it is very difficult to describe, a kind of emotion which 
resembles happiness, flows through us; so that pain and 
pleasure seem to come and go almost unremarked, like dark 
and light shadows flung upon some tremendous water-fall. 

What we are compelled to recognize, therefore, is that 
pain and pleasure are both instruments of the creative 
power of life. They only become evil or are used for pur- 
poses of evil, when, by reason of some fatal weakening in 
the other attributes of the soul, the purely sensational 
element in them dominates the emotional and they become 
something most horribly like living entities — entities with 
bodies composed of the vibrations of torment and souls 
composed of the substance of torment — and succeed in an- 
nihilating the very features of humanity. 



278 THE COMPLEX VISION 

Pain and pleasure are not identical with the unfathom- 
able duality which descends into the abyss; for pain and 
pleasure are definitely and quite unmistakenly fathomable ; 
though, as the gods know well, few enough of the sons of 
mortals reach the limit of them. They are fathomable; 
for carried to a certain pitch of intensity they end in 
ecstasy or they end in death. They are fathomable; for 
even in the souls of "the immortals" they are only instru- 
ments of life warring against death. They are fathom- 
able; because they have one identical root; and this root 
is the ecstasy of the rhythm of the complex vision which 
transcends and surpasses them both. 

The hideous symbol of "hell" is the creation of the false 
philosophy which makes the eternal duality resolve itself 
into flesh and spirit or into soul and body. The power of 
love renders this symbol meaningless and abortive; for 
personality is the supreme victory of life over what resists 
life; and consequently where personality exists "hell" 
cannot exist; for personality is the scope and boundary 
of all we know. The symbol of "Satan" also is rendered 
meaningless by the philosophy of the complex vision ; un- 
less such a symbol is used to express those appalling mo- 
ments when the evil in the soul attracts to itself and asso- 
ciates with itself the evil in the soul of some immortal god. 

But just as no mortal can be more evil than good, so 
also no immortal can be more evil than good, that is to say 
intrinsically and over a vast space of time. Momentarily 
and for a limited space of time it is obvious that the hu- 
man soul can be more evil than good ; and by a reasonable 
analogy it is only too probable that the same thing applies 
to the invisible sons of the universe. But the philosophy 
of the complex vision has no place for devils or demons in 
its world; for the simple reason that at the very moment 
any soul did become intrinsically and unchangeably evil, 
at that same moment it would vanish into nothingness, since 






PAIN AND PLEASURE 279 

existence is the product of the struggle between good and 
evil. 

If any soul, whether mortal or immortal, became entirely 
and absolutely good, it would instantaneously vanish into 
nothingness. For the life of no kind of living soul is 
thinkable or conceivable apart from the unfathomable 
duality. The false philosophy which finds its ideal in an 
imaginary ''parent" of the universe whose goodness is 
absolute is a philosophy conceived under the furtive influ- 
ence of the power of evil. For the essence of the power 
of evil is opposition to the movement of life; and no false 
ideal has ever done so much injury to the free expansion 
of life as has been done by this conception of a ''parent" 
of the universe who is a spirit of ' ' absolute goodness. ' ' 

It is entirely in accordance with the unfathomable cun- 
ning of the power of malice that the supreme historic ob- 
stacle to the power of love in the human soul should be this 
conception of a "parent" of the universe, possessed of 
absolute goodness. In the deepest and most subtle way 
does this conception oppose itself to the creative energy 
of love. The creative energy of love demands an inde- 
termined and malleable future. It demands an enemy 
with which to struggle. It demands the freedom of the 
individual will. Directly that ancient and treacherous 
phantom, the "inscrutable mystery" behind the "uni- 
verse," is allowed to become an object of thought; directly 
this mystery is allowed to take the shape of a "parent of 
things" who is to be regarded as "absolutely good," then, 
at that very moment, the eternal duality ceases to be "eter- 
nal ' ' and ceases to be a " duality. ' ' 

Good and evil become the manifestations of the same 
inscrutable power. Love and malice become interchange- 
able names of little meaning. Satan becomes as significant 
a figure as Christ. All distinctions are then blurred and 
blotted out. The aesthetic sense is made of no account ; or 



280 THE COMPLEX VISION 

becomes a matter of accidental fancy. Imagination is left 
with nothing to work upon. The rhythm of the complex 
vision is broken to pieces. All is permitted. Nothing is 
forbidden. The universe is reduced to an indiscriminate 
and formless mass of excremental substance. Indiscrimi- 
nately we have to swallow the " universe" or indiscrimi- 
nately we have to let the "universe" alone. There is no 
longer a protagonist in the great drama, for there is no 
longer an antagonist. Indeed there is no longer any 
drama. Tragedy is at an end; and Comedy is at an end. 
All is equal. Nothing matters. Everything is at once 
good and evil, beautiful and hideous, true and false. Or 
rather nothing is beautiful, nothing is true. The "par- 
ent of the universe" has satisfied his absolute "goodness" 
by swallowing up the universe; and there is nothing left 
for the miserable company of mortal souls to do but to bow 
their resigned heads and cry "Om! Om!" out of the 
belly of that unutterable "universal," which by becoming 
"everything" has become nothing. 

This conception of a universal being of "absolute good- 
ness" looms like a colossal corpse in front of all living 
movement. If instead of "absolute goodness" we say 
"absolute love," the falseness and deadliness of this con- 
ception appears even more unmistakable. For love is the 
prerogative of personality alone. Apart from personality 
we cannot conceive of love. And we cannot conceive of 
personality without the struggle between love and malice. 
"Absolute love" is a contradiction in terms; for it is the 
nature of love to be perpetually overcoming malignant 
opposition; and, in this overcoming, to be perpetually ap- 
proximating to a far-off ideal which can never be com- 
pletely reached. 

Devils and demons, or elemental entities of unredeemed 
evil, are unreal enough; and in their unreality dangerous 
enough to the creative spirit; but far more unreal and 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 281 

far more dangerous than any devil, is this conception of 
an absolute being whose "goodness" is of so spurious a 
nature that it obliterates all distinction. This conception 
of "a parent of the universe" who is responsible for the 
" eternal duality," but in whom the "eternal duality" is 
reconciled, blots out all hope for mortal or immortal souls. 
Between the soul of a man and the soul of an immortal 
god, as for instance between the soul of a man and the 
soul of Christ, there may be passionate and enduring love. 
But between the soul of a man, in whom love is desperately 
struggling with malice, and this monstrous being in whom 
love and malice have arrived at some unthinkable recon- 
ciliation, there can be no love. There can be nothing but 
indignant unbelief alternating with profound aversion. 
Towards any being in whose nature love has been recon- 
ciled to malice, the true to the false, the beautiful to the 
hideous, the good to the evil, there can be no alternative 
to unbelief, except unmitigated hostility. 

It is especially in connection with the atrocious cruelty 
of physical pain that our conscience and our tastes — un- 
less perverted by some premature metaphysical synthesis 
or by some morbid religious emotion — reluct at the con- 
ception of a "parent" of the universe. Personal love, 
since it is continually being roused to activity by pain 
and is continually being expressed through pain and in 
spite of pain, has come to find in pain, perhaps even more 
than in pleasure, its natural accomplice. Through the ra- 
diant well-being which results from pleasure, love pours 
forth its influence with a sun-like sweetness and profusion. 
But from the profound depths of pain, love rises like si- 
lence out of a deep sea ; and no path of moonlight upon any 
ocean reaches so far an horizon. 

And it is because of this intimate association of love with 
pain that it is found to be impossible to love any living 
being who has not experienced pain. Pain can be entirely 



282 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sensational; and in this case it needs a very passion of 
love to prevent it becoming obscene and humiliating. But 
it also can be entirely emotional; in which case it results 
directly from the struggle of malice with love. When 
pain is a matter of sensation or of sensationalized emotion, 
it depends for its existence upon the body. But when 
pain is entirely emotional it is independent of the body and 
is a condition of the soul. 

As a condition of the soul pain is inevitably associated 
with the struggle between love and malice. For in pro- 
portion as love overcomes malice, pain ceases, and in pro- 
portion as malice overcomes love, pain ceases. A human 
being entirely free from emotional pain is a human being 
in whom love has for the moment completely triumphed; 
or a human being in whom malice has for the moment 
completely triumphed. There is an exultation of love 
which fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, so that 
it can redeem the universe. There is also an exultation of 
malice which fills the soul with irresistible magnetic power, 
so that it can corrupt the universe. In both these extreme 
cases — and they are cases of no unfrequent occurrence in 
all deep souls — emotional pain ceases to exist. 

Emotional pain is the normal condition of the human 
soul; because the normal condition of the human soul is 
a wavering and uncertain struggle between love and mal- 
ice; but although love may overcome malice, or malice 
may overcome love, with relative completeness, they neither 
of them can overcome the other with absolute completeness. 
There must always remain in the depths of the soul a liv- 
ing potentiality; which is the love or the malice which has 
been for the moment relatively overcome by its opposite. 
And just as pain can be both emotional and sensational 
so pleasure can be both emotional and sensational. Pleas- 
ure, like pain, can be a thing of bodily sensation alone ; in 
which case it tends to become a thing of degrading and 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 283 

humiliating reality. A human entity entirely obsessed by 
physical pleasure is a revolting and obscene spectacle. 
Even with animals it is only when their sensation of pleas- 
ure is in some degree emotionalized that we can endure 
to contemplate it with sympathy. 

The soul of an animal is capable of being "de-animal- 
ized" in just as horrible a way by a pure sensation as the 
soul of a man is capable of being ' ' de-humanized ' ' by a 
pure sensation. The sexual sensation of pleasure carried 
to the extreme limit ' * de-animalizes " animals as it ''de- 
humanizes" human beings; because it drowns the conscious- 
ness of personality. There is an ecstasy when personality 
loses itself and finds itself again in a deeper personality. 
There is also an ecstasy where personality loses itself in 
pure sensation. In the region of sexual sensation, just 
as in the region of sexual emotion, it is love alone which is 
able to hold fast to personality in the midst of ecstasy; or 
which is able to merge personality in a deeper personality. 

It is because of love 's intimate association with pain that 
we are unable, except under the morbid pressure of some 
metaphysical or religious illusion, to regard the imaginary 
" parent of the universe" with anything but hostility. 
Both pain and pleasure are associated with the unfathom- 
able duality. And although the unfathomable duality de- 
scends into abysses beyond the reach of both of these, yet 
we cannot conceive of either of them existing apart from 
this struggle. 

But there can be no duality, as there can be no struggle, 
in the soul of a being in whom love has absolutely over- 
come malice. Therefore in such a soul there can be no 
pain. And for a soul incapable of feeling pain we can feel 
no love. It is of course obvious that this whole problem 
is an imaginary one. We are not really confronted with 
the alternative of loving or hating the unruffled soul of this 
absolute one. And we are not confronted with this prob- 



284 , THE COMPLEX VISION 

lem for the simple reason that such a soul does not exist. 
And it does not exist because every soul, together with 
the "universe" created by every soul, depends for its 
existence upon this ultimate struggle. 

It is from a consideration of the nature of pain and pleas- 
ure that we attain the clue to the ultimate duality. Pain 
and pleasure are conditions of the soul; conditions which 
have a definite and quite fathomable limit. Malice and 
love are. conditions of the soul ; conditions which have no 
definite limit, but which descend into unfathomable depths. 
Extremity of malice sinks down to an abyss where pain 
and pleasure are lost and merged in one another. Ex- 
tremity of love sinks down to an abyss where pain and 
pleasure are lost and merged in one another. But just as, 
apart from the individual soul which is their possessor, 
pain and pleasure have no existence at all; so, apart from 
the individual soul which is the arena of their struggle, 
malice and love have no existence at all. Because we speak 
of pain and pleasure as if they were "things in them- 
selves" and of malice and love as if they were "things in 
themselves" this can never mean more than that they 
are eternal conditions of the soul which is their habitation. 

Apart from a personal soul, ' ' love ' ' has no meaning and 
cannot be said to exist. Apart from a personal soul, 
"life" has no meaning and cannot be said to exist. There 
is no such thing as the "love-force" or the "life-force," 
any more than there is such a thing as the ' ' malice-force ' ' 
or the ' ' death-force, ' ' apart from some personal soul. The 
"life-force" is a condition of the soul which carried to 
an extreme limit results in ecstasj^. The "death force" 
is a condition of the soul which carried to an extreme limit 
results in ecstasy. Beyond these two ecstasies there is 
nothing but total annihilation; which would simply mean 
that the soul had become absolutely "good" or absolutely 
"evil." 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 285 

"What we call the "death force " in the soul does not 
imply real death, until it has reached a limit beyond 
ecstasy. It implies a malignant resistance to life which 
may be carried to a point of indescribable exultation. As 
I have already hinted there is a profound association be- 
tween the duality of love and malice and the duality of 
pain and pleasure. But it would be false to our deepest 
experience to say that love implies pleasure and that 
malice implies pain. As a matter of fact, they both imply 
a thrilling and ecstatic pleasure, in proportion as the 
equilibrium between them, the balance of the wavering 
struggle between them, is interrupted by the relative vic- 
tory of either the one or the other. 

The relative victory of malice or of the " death-force' ' 
over love or over the "life-force" is attended by exquisite 
and poignant pleasure, a pleasure which culminates in un- 
utterable ecstasy. The shallow ethical thinkers who re- 
gard "evil" as a negation are obviously thinkers whose 
consciousness has never penetrated into the depths of their 
own souls. Pain and pleasure for such thinkers must be 
entirely sensationalized. They cannot have experienced, to 
any profound depth, the kind of pain and pleasure which 
are purely emotional. 

The condition of the soul which gives itself up to the 
"death force" or to the malignant power which resists 
creation may be sometimes a condition of thrilling and 
exultant pleasure. As we have already indicated, the 
normal condition of the soul, wavering and hesitating be- 
tween good and evil, is liable to be changed into a profound 
melancholy, when it is confronted by the "illusion of dead 
matter." But, as we have also discovered, if, in the soul 
thus contemplating the " illusion of dead matter," evil 
is more potent than good, there may be a thrilling and 
exquisite pleasure. 

The "death-force" in our own soul leaps in exultation 



286 THE COMPLEX VISION 

to welcome the ' ' death illusion ' ' in material objects. Upon 
this illusion, which it has itself projected, it rejoices to 
feed. There is a " sweet pain" in the melancholy it thus 
evokes; a "sweet pain" that is more delicate than any 
pleasure; and it is a mistake to assume that even the in- 
sanity which this aberration may result in is necessarily 
an insanity of distress. It may be an insanity of ecstasy. 
All this is profoundly associated with the aesthetic sense; 
and we may note that the diabolical exultation with which 
many great artists and writers fling themselves upon the 
obscene, the atrocious, the cruel and the abominable, and 
derive exquisite pleasure from representing these things 
is not an example of the love in them overcoming the mal- 
ice but an example of the "death-force" in them leaping 
to respond to the death-force in the universe. 

It is just here that we touch one of the profoundest 
secrets of the aesthetic sense. I refer to that condition of 
the soul when the creative energy which is life and love, 
suffers an insidious corruption by the power which resists 
creation and which is malice and death. This psycholog- 
ical secret, although assuming an aesthetic form, is closely 
associated with the sexual instinct. 

The sexual instinct, which is primarily creative, may 
easily, by the insidious corruption of the power which 
resists creation, become a vampirizing force of destruction. 
It may indeed become something worse than destruction. 
It may become an abysmal and unutterable "death-in- 
life." That voluptuous "pleasure in cruelty" which is 
an intrinsic element of the sexual instinct may attach itself 
to "the pleasure in death" which is the intrinsic emotion 
of the aboriginal inert malice; or rather the "pleasure in 
death" of the adversary of creation may insidiously asso- 
ciate itself with the "pleasure in cruelty" of the sexual 
instinct and make of "this energy of cruelty" a new and 
terrible emotion which is at once cruel and inert. 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 287 

All this were mere fantastic speculation if it lacked touch 
with direct experience. But direct experience, if we have 
any psycho-clairvoyance at all, bears unmistakable wit- 
ness to what I have been saying. If one glances at the 
expression in the countenance of any human soul who is 
deriving pleasure from the spectacle of suffering and who, 
under the pressure of this queer fusion of the aesthetic 
sense with the abysmal malice, is engaged in vampirizing 
the victim of such suffering one will observe a very curious 
and very illuminating series of revelations. 

One will observe, for instance, the presence of demonic 
energy and of magnetic dominance in such a countenance; 
but parallel with this and simultaneously with this, one 
will observe an expression of unutterable sadness, a sad- 
ness which is inert and death-like, a sadness which has the 
soulless rigidity and the frozen immobility of a corpse. 
We are thus justified, by an impression of direc* expe- 
rience, in our contention that the peculiar pleasure which 
many artists derive from the contemplation of suffering 
and from the contemplation of what is atrocious, obscene, 
monstrous and revolting, is the result of a corruption of 
both the sexual instinct and the aesthetic sense by the 
abysmal malice. 

For the pleasure which such souls derive from the con- 
templation of suffering is identical with the pleasure they 
derive from contemplating the ''illusion of dead matter." 
Philosophers who give themselves up to the profoundest 
pessimism do not do so, as a rule, under the influence of 
love. The only exceptions to this are rare cases when pre- 
occupation with suffering does not spring from a furtive 
enjoyment of the spectacle of suffering but from an in- 
curable pity for the victims of suffering. Such exceptions 
are far more rare than is usually supposed, because the 
self -preservative hypocrisy of most pessimists enables them 
to conceal their voluptuousness under the mask of pity. 



288 THE COMPLEX VISION 

Nor must we hide from ourselves the fact that even pity, 
which in its pure form is the very incarnation of love, 
has a perverted form in which it lends itself to every kind 
of subterranean cruelty. Our psychological insight does 
not amount to very much if it does not recognize that 
there is a form of pity which enhances the pleasure of 
cruelty. There may indeed be discovered, when we dig 
deep enough into the abysses of the soul, an aspect of pity 
which thrills us with a most delicate sensation of tender- 
ness and yet which remains an aspect of pity by no means 
incompatible with the fact that we continue the process of 
causing pain to the object of such tenderness. 

Of all human emotions the emotion of pity is capable of 
the most divergent subtleties. The only kind of pity which 
is entirely free from the ambiguous element of "pleasure 
in cruelty" is the pity which is only another name for 
love, when love is confronted by suffering. There is such 
a thing as a suppressed envy of "the pleasure of cruelty" 
manifested in the form of moral indignation against the 
perpetrator of such cruelty. 

Such moral indignation, with its secret impulse of sup- 
pressed unconscious jealousy, is a very frequent phe- 
nomenon when any sexual element enters into the cruelty 
in question. But the psychologist who has learnt his art 
from the profoundest of all psychologists — I mean the 
Christ of the gospels — is not deceived by this moral ges- 
ture. He is able to detect the infinite yearning of the 
satyr under the righteous fury of the moral avenger. 

And he has an infallible test at hand by which to ascer- 
tain whether the emotion he feels is pure or impure pity; 
whether in other words it is merely a process of delicate 
vampirizing, or whether it is the creative sympathy of 
love. And the test which he has at his disposal is nothing 
less than his attitude towards the perpetrator of the par- 
ticular cruelty under discussion. If his attitude is one 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 289 

of implacable revenge he may be sure that his pity is 
something else than the emotion of love. If his attitude 
is one which implies pity not only for the victim but also 
for the victim's torturer — who without question has more 
need for pity — then he may be sure that his attitude is an 
attitude of genuine love. 

The mood of implacable revenge need not necessarily im- 
ply a suppressed jealousy or envy ; but it certainly implies 
the presence of an element which has its origin in the 
sinister side of the great duality. The pleasure which 
certain minds derive from a contemplation of the "dead- 
ness of matter" is closely associated with the voluptuous- 
ness of cruelty drawn from the recesses of the sexual in- 
stinct. Such cruelty finds one of its most insidious incen- 
tives in the phenomenon of humiliation ; and when the phi- 
losopher contemplates the "deadness of matter" with ex- 
quisite satisfaction, the pleasure which he experiences, or 
the "sweet pain" which he experiences, is very closely con- 
nected with the cruel idea of humiliating the pride of the 
human soul. 

The duality of pleasure and pain helps us to understand 
the nature of the duality of good and evil, for it helps us 
to realize that good and evil are not separate independent 
existences ; but are — like pleasure and pain — emotional con- 
ditions of the soul. Thus when we say that the ultimate 
duality of good and evil, or of creation and what resists 
creation, is the thing upon which the whole universe de- 
pends, we must not for a moment be supposed to mean 
that the ultimate reality of the universe consists of two 
opposed "forces" who, like blind chemical energies, strug- 
gle with one another in unconscious darkness. 

The ultimate reality of the universe is personality, or 
rather, let us say, is the existence of an innumerable com- 
pany of personal souls, visible and invisible, each of whom 
half-creates and half -discovers his own universe; each of 



290 THE COMPLEX VISION 

whom finds, sooner or later, in the objective validity of the 
"eternal ideas," a universe which is common to them all. 
The unfathomable duality upon which this objective world, 
common to them all, depends for its existence is a duality 
which exists in every separate soul. "Without such a dual- 
ity it is impossible to conceive any soul existing. And di- 
rectly such a duality were resolved into unity such a soul 
would cease to exist. But because, without the presence 
of evil, good would cease to exist, we have no right to say 
that evil is an aspect of good. We have no right to say this 
because, if good is dependent for its existence upon evil, 
it is equally true that evil is dependent for its existence 
upon good. 

The whole question of ultimate issues is a purely specu- 
lative one and one that does not touch the real situation. 
The real situation, the real fact of our personal experience 
— which is the only experience worth anything — lies un- 
doubtedly in this impression of unfathomable duality. It 
cannot be regarded as a reconciliation between love and 
malice merely to recognize that love and malice are not 
independent "forces," such as can be compared to chem- 
ical "forces," but are states of the soul. 

It is true that they both exist within the soul, just as 
the soul exists within time and space ; but since the soul is 
unfathomable these two conditions of the soul are also un- 
fathomable. The struggle upon which the universe de- 
pends is a struggle which goes on within the circle of per- 
sonality; but since personality is unthinkable without this 
struggle, it may truly be said that the existence of person- 
ality ' ' depends ' ' upon the existence of this struggle. 
When we speak of pain and pleasure as if they were in- 
dependent entities we are forgetting that it is merely as 
"states of the soul" that pain and pleasure exist. When 
we speak of love and malice as independent entities we 
are forgetting that it is merely as "states of the soul" that 



PAIN AND PLEASURE 291 

love and malice exist. Love and malice, the life-force and 
the death-force, these are merely abstractions when sep- 
arated from the soul which is their arena. 

It is certainly not in harmony with the revelation of 
the complex vision to seek to imagine some vague "begin- 
ning of things"; when some inscrutable chemical or spirit- 
ual " energy," called "life," rushed into objective exist- 
ence and proceeded to create living personalities through 
which it might be able to function. 

The revelation of the complex vision is a revelation of a 
world made up of unfathomable personalities. Of this 
world, of these unfathomable personalities, we are unable 
to postulate any "beginning." They have always existed. 
They seem likely to remain always in existence. Our 
knowledge stops at that point; because our knowledge is 
the knowledge of personality. The revelation of the com- 
plex vision is constantly warning us against any tendency 
to evade the whole question of the original mystery by the 
use of meaningless abstractions. 

The word "energy" is such an abstraction. So also is 
the word ' ' movement. ' ' So also are those logical formulae 
of the pure reason, such as the "a priori unity of apper- 
ception" and the "absolute spirit." Apart from person- 
ality, apart from the complex vision of the individual soul, 
there is no such thing as "energy" or "movement" or 
* ' transcendental unity " or " absolute spirit. ' ' In the same 
way we are compelled to recognize that apart from per- 
sonality the unfathomable duality has no meaning. But 
in so far as it represents the eternal struggle between life 
and death which goes on all the while in every living soul, 
the unfathomable duality iz the permanent condition of 
our deepest knowledge. 

It is just here that the mystery of pain and pleasure 
helps us to understand the mystery of love and malice. 
For the same insensitiveness in certain souls that prevents 



292 THE COMPLEX VISION 

their feeling any vivid pain or any vivid pleasure, also pre- 
vents their feeling any intense malice. But this insensi- 
tiveness which prevents their feeling any intense malice 
is, more than anything else, the especial evocation of the 
power of malice. For intensity, even in malice, is a proof 
that malice has been appropriating to its use the energy 
of life. The real opposite of intense love is not intense 
malice but inert malice. 

For malignant inertness is the true adversary of creation. 
From this it necessarily follows that the soul which is in- 
sensitive to pain and pleasure and to malice and love is a 
soul in whom the profound opposite of love has already won 
a relative victory. It is certainly possible, as we have 
seen, for the victory of malice over love to be accompanied 
by thrilling pleasure; but, when this happens malice has 
lost something of its "inertness" by drawing to itself and 
corrupting for its own use the dynamic energy of love. 
"When malice displays itself in an intense and vivid activ- 
ity of destruction it is less "evil" and less purely "ma- 
lignant" than when it remains insensitive and inert. For 
this reason it is undeniably true that an insensitive person, 
although he may cause much less positive pain than a pas- 
sionately cruel person, is in reality a more complete incar- 
nation of the power of "evil" than the latter; for the 
latter, in the very violence of his passion, has appropriated 
to himself something of the creative energy. It is true 
that in appropriating this he has corrupted it, and it is 
true that by the use of it he can cause far more immediate 
pain; but it remains that in himself he is less purely 
"evil" than the person whose chief characteristic is a 
malignant insensitiveness. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE REALITY OF THE SOUL IN RELATION TO MODERN THOUGHT 

It ought not to be forgotten, as at least an important 
historical fact, in regard to what we have asserted as the 
revelation of the complex vision concerning the reality of 
the soul, that the two most influential modern philosophers 
deny this reality altogether. I refer to Bergson and "Wil- 
liam James. 

In the systems of thought of both these writers there is 
no place left for that concrete, real, actual " monad,' ' with 
its semi-mental, semi-material substratum of unknown 
hyper-physical, hyper-psychic substance, which is what we 
mean, in philosophical as well as in popular language when 
we talk of the "soul." 

According to the revelation of man's complex vision this 
hyper-physical, hyper-psychic " something," which is the 
concrete centre of will and consciousness and energy, is 
also the invisible core or base of what we term personality, 
and, without its real existence, personality can have no 
permanence. Without the assumption of its real existence 
personality cannot hold its own or remain integral and 
identical in the midst of the process of life. 

This then being the nature and character of the soul, 
what weight is there in the arguments used against the 
soul's concrete existence by such thinkers as James and 
Bergson? The position of the American philosopher in 
regard to this matter seems less plausible and less con- 
sistent than that of his French master. 

James is prepared to give his adherence to a belief in a 

293 



294: THE COMPLEX VISION 

soul of the earth and in planetary souls and stellar souls. 
He quotes with approval on this point the writings of 
Gustav Theodor Fechner, the Leipzig chemist. He is also 
prepared to find a place in his pluralistic world for at 
least one quite personal and quite finite god. 

If he is not merely exercising his philosophical fancy in 
all this, but is actually prepared to assume the real con- 
crete existence of an earth-soul and of planetary souls and 
of at least one beneficent and quite personal god, why 
should he find himself unable to accept the same sort of 
real concrete soul in living human beings? "Why should 
he find himself compelled to say — "the notion of the sub- 
stantial soul, so freely used by common men and the more 
popular philosophers has fallen upon evil days and has 
no prestige in the eyes of critical thinkers . . . like the 
word 'cause' the word 'soul' is but a theoretic stop-gap 
... it marks a place and claims it for a future explana- 
tion to occupy ... let us leave out the soul, then, and 
confront the original dilemma"? 

This scepticism of the pragmatic philosophy in regard to 
the "substantial soul" is surely an unpardonable incon- 
sistency. For in all other problems the fact of an idea 
being "freely used by common men" is, according to prag- 
matic principles, an enormous piece of evidence in its 
favour. The further fact that all the great "a priori" 
metaphysical systems have been driven by their pure logic 
to discredit the " substantiality" of the soul, just as they 
have been driven to discredit the personality of God, ought, 
one would think, where ' ' radical empiricism ' ' is concerned, 
to be a still stronger piece of evidence on the soul's side. 

James has told us that he has found it necessary to 
throw away "pure reason" and to assume an inherent 
"irrationality" in the system of things. Why then, when 
it comes to this particular axiom of irrational common- 
sense, does he balk and sheer off? 






THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 295 

One cannot resist the temptation of thinking that just 
here the great Pragmatist has been led astray by that very 
philosophical pride he condemns in the metaphysicians. 
One cannot help suspecting that it is nothing less than the 
fact of the soul's appeal to ordinary common-sense that has 
prejudiced this philosopher of common-sense so profoundly 
against it. 

"What James does not seem to see is that his pseudo- 
scientific reduction of the integral soul-monad into a 
wavering and fitful series of compounded vortex-conscious- 
ness is really a falling back from the empirical data of 
human reality into the thin abstracted air of conceptual 
truth. The concrete substantial soul, just because it is the 
permanent basis of personality and the only basis of per- 
sonality which common sense can apprehend, is precisely 
one of those obstinate original particular "data" of con- 
sciousness which it is the proud role of conceptual and in- 
tellectual logic to explain away, and to explain away in 
favour of attenuated rationalistic theories which are them- 
selves "abstracted" or, shall we say, pruned and shaved 
off from the very thing they are supposed to explain. 

All these "flowing streams," and "pulses of conscious- 
ness" and multiple "compoundings of consciousness" and 
overlappings of sub-consciousness are in reality, for all 
their pseudo-scientific air, nothing more or less than the 
old-fashioned metaphysical conceptions, such as "being" 
and "becoming," under a new name. 

Nor is the new "irrational reason" by which the prag- 
matist arrives at these plausible theories really in the least 
different from the imaginative personal vision which, as 
James himself clearly shows, was at the back of all that 
old-fashioned dialectic. 

The human mind has not changed its inherent texture; 
nor can it change it. We may talk of substituting intui- 
tion for reason. But the "new intuition," with its arro- 



296 THE COMPLEX VISION 

gant claims of getting upon the "inner side" of reality, 
is after all only "the old reason" functioning with a 
franker admission of its reliance upon that immediate per- 
sonal vision and with less regard for the logical rules. 

It is not, in fact, because of any rule of "logical iden- 
tity with itself" that the human mind clings so tena- 
ciously to the notion of an integral soul-monad. It is be- 
cause of its own inmost consciousness that such a monad, 
that such a substantial integral soul, is in the deepest 
sense its very self, and a denial of it a denial of its very 
self. 

The attitude of Bergson in this matter is much more 
consistent than that of James. Bergson is frankly and 
confessedly not a pluralist at all, but a spiritual monist. 
As a spiritual monist he is compelled to regard what we 
call "matter," including in this term the mechanical or 
chemical resistance of body and brain, as something which 
is produced or evolved or "thrown off" by spirit and as 
something which, when once it has been evolved, spirit has 
to penetrate, permeate, and render porous and submissive. 

The complexity of Bergson 's speculations with regard 
to memory and the "elan vital," with regard above all to 
the "true time," has done much to distract popular atten- 
tion away from his real attitude towards the soul. But 
Bergson 's attitude towards the existence of a substantial 
soul-monad is consistently and inevitably hostile. 

It could not be anything else as long as the original per- 
sonal "fling" into life which gives each one of us his pe- 
culiar angle of vision remained with him a question of one 
unified spirit — "a continuum of eternal shooting-forth" 
— which functioned through the brain and through all 
personal life and perpetually created a new unforeseen 
universe. 

In the flux of this one universal "spirit," whereof 
"duration," in the mysterious Bergsonian sense, is the 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 297 

functional activity, there can obviously be no place for 
an actual substantial soul. "The consciousness we have 
of our own self in its continual flux introduces us to the 
interior of a reality on the model of which we must repre- 
sent other realities. All reality, therefore, is a tendency, 
if we agree to mean by tendency an incipient change in 
any direction." And when we enquire as to the nature 
of this "continual flux" of which the positive and in- 
tegral thing we have come to call the soul is but a ripple, 
or swirling whirlpool of centripetal ripples, the answer 
which Bergson gives is definite enough. "We approach a 
duration which strains, contracts, and intensifies itself 
more and more; at the limit would be eternity. No longer 
conceptual eternity, which is an eternity of death, but an 
eternity of life. A living, and therefore still moving eter- 
nity in which our own particular duration would be in- 
cluded, as the vibrations are in light; an eternity which 
would be the concentration of all duration, as materiality 
is its dispersion. Between these two extreme limits intui- 
tion moves, and this movement is the very essence of meta- 
physics. ' ' 

Thus according to Bergson the essential secret of life is 
to be found in some peculiar movement of what he calls 
spirit; a movement which takes place in some unutterable 
medium, or upon some indescribable plane, the name of 
which is "pure time" or "duration." 

And listening to all this we cannot resist a sigh of dis- 
may. For here, in these vague de-humanized terms — 
"tendency," "flux," "eternity," "vibration," "dura- 
tion," "dispersion" — we are once more, only with a 
different set of concepts, following the old metaphysical 
method, that very method which Bergson himself sets out 
to confine to its inferior place. "Tendency" or "flux" 
or "duration" is just as much a metaphysical concept as 
"being" or "not being" or "becoming." 



298 THE COMPLEX VISION 

The only way in which we can really escape from the 
rigid conceptualism of rational logic is to accept the judg- 
ment of the totality of man's nature. And the judgment 
of the totality of man's nature points unmistakably to the 
existence of a real substantial soul. Such a soul is the 
indispensable implication of personality. And the most 
interior and intimate knowledge that we are in possession 
of, or shall ever be in possession of, is the knowledge of 
personality. 

Bergson is perfectly right when he asserts that "the 
consciousness which we have of our own self" introduces 
us "to the interior of a reality, on the model of which we 
must represent other realities." But Bergson is surely 
departing both from the normal facts of ordinary intro- 
spection and from the exceptional facts of abnormal illumi- 
nation when he appends to the words "the consciousness 
which we have of our own self" the further words in its 
/jontinual "flux." For in our normal moods of human 
introspection, as well as in our abnormal moods of super- 
human illumination, what we are conscious of most of all 
is a sense of integral continuity in the midst of change, and 
of identical permanence in the midst of ebb and flow. 

The flux of things does most assuredly rush swiftly by 
us; and we, in our inmost selves, are conscious of life's 
incessant flow. But how could we be conscious of any of 
this turbulent movement across the prow of our voyaging 
ship, if the ship itself — the substantial base of our liv- 
ing consciousness — were not an organized and integral 
reality, of psycho-chemical material, able to exert will and 
to make use of memory and reason in its difficult struggle 
with the waves and winds? 

The revelation of man's complex vision with regard to 
the personality of the soul is a thing of far-reaching issues 
and implications. 

One of these implications is that while we have the right to 



THE REALITY OP THE SOUL 299 

the term "the eternal flux" in regard to the changing waves 
of sensations and ideas that pass across the horizon of the 
soul's vision we have no right to think of this "eternal 
flux" as anything else than the pressure upon us of the 
universe of our own vision and the pressure upon us of 
the universe of other visions, as they seem, for this or that 
passing moment, to be different from our own. 

The kind of world to which we are thus committed is a 
world crowded with living personalities. Each of these 
personalities brings with it its own separate universe. But 
the fact that all these separate universes find their ideal 
synthesis or teleological orientation in "the vision of the 
immortals, ' ' justifies us in assuming that in a certain eter- 
nal sense all these apparently conflicting universes are in 
reality one. This unity of ideas, with its predominant 
aesthetic idea — the idea of beauty — and its predominant 
emotional idea — the idea of love — helps us towards a syn- 
thesis which is after all only a dynamic one, a thing of 
movement, growth and creation. 

Such a teleological unity, forever advancing to a con- 
summation never entirely to be attained, demands how- 
ever some sort of static " milieu " as well as some sort of 
static "material" in the midst of which and out of which 
it moulds its premeditated future. It is precisely this 
static "milieu" or "medium," and this static "material" 
or formless "objective mystery," which Bergson's philoso- 
phy, of the "elan vital" of pure spirit, spreading out into 
a totally indetermined future, denies and eliminates. 

In order to justify this double elimination — the elim- 
ination of an universal "medium" and the elimination of 
a formless "thing-in-itself " — Bergson is compelled to 
reduce space to a quite secondary and merely logical con- 
ception and to substitute for our ordinary stream of time, 
measurable in terms of space, an altogether new conception 
of time, measurable in terms of feeling. 



300 THE COMPLEX VISION 

When however we come to analyse this new Bergsonian 
time, or as he prefers to call it ' ' intuitively-felt duration," 
we cannot avoid observing- that it is merely a new "mys- 
terious something" introduced into the midst of the sys- 
tem of things, in order to enable us to escape from those 
older traditional "mysterious somethings" which we have 
to recognize as the "immediate data" of human conscious- 
ness. 

It might be argued that Bergson's monistic "spirit," 
functioning in a mysterious indefinable "time," demands 
neither more nor less of an irrational act of faith than our 
mysterious psycho-material "soul" surrounded by a mys- 
terious hyper-chemical "medium" and creating its future 
out of an inexplicable "objective mystery." 

Where however the philosophy of the complex vision 
has the advantage over the philosophy of the "elan vital" 
is in the fact that even on Bergson's own admission what 
the human consciousness most intensely knows is not * ' pure 
spirit," whether shaped like a fan or shaped like a sheaf, 
but simply its own integral identity. And this integral 
identity of consciousness can only be visualized or felt in 
the mind itself under the form of a living concrete monad. 

It will be seen, however, when it comes to a " showing up ' ' 
of what might be called the "trump cards" of axiomatic 
mystery, that the complex vision has in reality fewer of 
these ultimate irrational "data" than has the philosophy 
of the elan vital. 

Space itself, whether we regard it as objective or sub- 
jective, is certainly not an irrational axiom but an en- 
tirely rational and indeed an entirely inevitable assump- 
tion. And what the complex vision reveals is that the 
trinity of "mysterious somethings" with which we are 
compelled to start our enquiry, namely the "something" 
which is the substratum of the soul, the "something" which 
is the "medium" binding all souls together, and the 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 301 

1 'something" which is the " objective mystery" out of 
which all souls create their universe, is, in fact, a genuine 
trinity in the pure theological sense; in other words is a 
real " three-in-one." And it is a "three-in-one" not only 
because it is unthinkable that three "incomprehensible sub- 
stances" should exist in touch with one another without 
being in organic relation, but also because all three of them 
are dominated, in so far as we can say anything about them 
at all, by the same universal space. 

It is true that the unappropriated mass of "objective 
mystery" upon which no shadow of the creative energy 
of any soul has yet been thrown must be considered as ut- 
terly ' ■ formless and void ' ' and thus in a sense beyond space 
and time, yet since immediately we try to imagine or visu- 
alize this mystery, as well as just logically "consider" it, 
we are compelled to extend over it our conception of time 
and space, it is in a practical sense, although not in a 
logical sense, under the real dominion of these. 

When therefore the. philosophy of the complex vision 
places its trump-cards of axiomatic mystery over against 
the similar cards of the philosophy of the "elan vital" it 
will be found that in actual number Bergson has one more 
1 ' card ' ' than we have. For Bergson has not only his ' ' pure 
spirit" and his "intuitively-felt time," but has also — 
for he cannot really escape from that by just asserting that 
his "spirit" produces it — the opposing obstinate prin- 
ciple of "matter" or "solid bodies" or "mechanical brains" 
upon which his pure spirit has to work. 

It is indeed out of its difficulties with "matter," that is 
to say with bodies and brains, that Bergson 's "spirit" is 
forced to forego its natural element of "intuitive duration" 
and project itself into the rigid rationalistic conceptualism 
of ordinary science and metaphysic. 

The point of our argument in this place is that since the 
whole purpose of philosophy is articulation or clarification 



302 THE COMPLEX VISION 

and since in this process of clarification the fewer " axio- 
matic incomprehensibles" we start with the better; it is 
decidedly to the advantage of any philosophy that it should 
require at the start nothing more than the mystery of the 
individual soul confronting the mystery of the world 
around it. And it is to the disadvantage of Bergson 's 
philosophy that it should require at the start, in addition 
to "pure spirit " with its assumption of memory and will, 
and "pure matter" with its assumption of ordinary space 
and ordinary time, a still further axiomatic trump-card, 
in the theory of intuitive " durational' ' time, in which the 
real process of the life-flow transcends all reason and logic. 

Putting aside however the cosmological aspect of our 
controversy with the "radical empirical" school of thought, 
we still have left unconsidered our most serious divergence 
from their position. This consists in the fact that both 
Bergson and James have entirely omitted from their orig- 
inal instrument of research that inalienable aspect of the 
human soul which we call the aesthetic sense. 

iWith only a few exceptions — notably that of Spinoza 
— all the great European philosophers from Plato to 
Nietzsche have begun their philosophizing from a starting- 
point which implied, as an essential part of their "or- 
ganum" of enquiry, the possession by the human soul of 
some sort of aesthetic vision. 

To these thinkers, whether rationalistic or mystic, no 
interpretation of the world seemed possible that did not 
start with the asethetic sense, both as an instrument of 
research and as a test of what research discovered. 

The complete absence of any discussion of the aesthetic 
sense in Bergson and James is probably an historic con- 
fession of the tyranny of commercialism and physical sci- 
ence over the present generation. It may also be a spir- 
itual reflection, in the sphere of philosophy, of the rise 
to political and social power of that bourgeois class which, 



THE REALITY OP. THE SOUL 303 

of all classes, is the least interested in aesthetic speculation. 

The philosophy of the complex vision may have to wait 
for its hour of influence until the proletariat comes into 
its own. And it does indeed seem as if between the 
triumph of the proletariat and the triumph of the aesthetic 
sense there were an intimate association. It is precisely 
because these two philosophers have so completely neglected 
the aesthetic sense that their speculations seem to have so 
little hold upon the imagination. When once it is allowed 
that the true instrument of research into the secret of the 
universe is the rhythmic activity of man 's complete nature, 
and not merely the activity of his reason or the activity of 
his intuition working in isolaton, it then becomes obvious 
that the universal revelations of the aesthetic sense, if they 
can be genuinely disentangled from mere subjective ca- 
prices, are an essential part of what we have to work with 
if we are to approach the truth. 

The philosophy of the complex vision bases its entire 
system upon its faith in the validity of these revelations; 
and, as we have already shown, it secures an objective 
weight and force for this ideal vision by its faith in certain 
unseen companions of humanity, whom it claims the right 
to name ' ' the immortals. ' ' 

This is really the place where we part company with 
Bergson and James. We agree with the former in his 
distrust of the old metaphysic. We agree with the latter 
in many of his pluralistic speculations. But we feel that 
any philosophy which refuses to take account, at the very 
beginning, of those regions of human consciousness which 
are summed up by the words " beauty " and ''art," is a 
philosophy that in undertaking to explain life has begun 
by eliminating from life one of its most characteristic 
products. 

In Bergson 's interpretation of life the stress is laid upon 
" spirit " and " intuition. ' ' In James' interpretation of 



304 THE COMPLEX VISION 

life the stress is laid upon those practical changes in the 
world and in human nature which any new idea must pro- 
duce if it is to prove itself true. 

In the view of life we are now trying to make clear, 
philosophy is so closely dependent upon the activity of 
the aesthetic sense that it might itself be called an art, the 
most difficult and the most comprehensive of all the arts, 
the art of retaining the rhythmic balance of all man's 
contradictory energies. What this rhythmic balance of 
man's concentrated energies seems to make clear is the 
primary importance of the process of discrimination and 
valuation. 

From the profoundest depths of the soul rises the con- 
sciousness of the power of choice ; and this power of choice 
to which we give, by common consent, the name of "will," 
finds itself confronted at the start by the eternal duality 
of the impulse to create and the impulse to resist creation. 
The impulse to create we find, by experience, to be identical 
with the emotion of love. And the impulse to resist crea- 
tion we find, by experience, to be identical with the emotion 
of malice. 

But experience carries us further than this. The im- 
pulse to create, or the emotion of love, is found, as soon as 
it begins a function, to be itself a living synthesis of 
three primordial reactions to life, which, in philosophic 
language, we name "ideas." These three primordial ideas 
may be summed up as follows: The idea of beauty, which 
is the revelation of the aesthetic sense. The idea of good- 
ness or nobility, which is the revelation of conscience. 
The idea of truth, or the mind's apprehension of reality, 
which is the revelation of reason, intuition, instinct, and 
imagination, functioning in sympathic harmony. Now it 
is true that by laying so much stress upon the "elan vital" 
or flowing tide of creative energy, Bergson has indicated 
his acceptance of one side of the ultimate duality. But 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 305 

for Ber^son this creative impulse is not confronted by evil 
or by malice as its opposite, but simply by the natural 
inertness of mechanical "matter." 

And once having assumed his "continuum" of pure 
spirit, he deals no further with the problem of good and 
evil or with the problem of the aesthetic sense. 

From our point of view he is axiomatically unable to 
deal with these problems for the simple reason that his 
elan vital or flux of pure spirit, being itself a mere meta- 
physical abstraction from living personality, can never, 
however hard you squeeze it, produce either the human 
conscience or the human aesthetic sense. 

These things can only be produced from the concrete 
activity of a real living individual soul. In the same way 
it is true that William James, by his emphasis upon con- 
duct and action and practical efficiency as the tests of 
truth, is bound to lay enormous stress at the very start 
upon the ethical problem. 

What a person believes about the universe becomes itself 
an ethical problem by the introduction on the one hand 
of the efficiency of the will to believe and on the other of 
the assumption that a person "ought" to believe that 
which it is "useful" to him to believe, as long as it does 
not conflict with other desirable truths. But this ethical 
element in the pragmatic doctrine, though it is so dom- 
inant as almost to reduce philosophy itself to a sub-division 
of ethics, is not, when one examines it, at all the same thing 
as what the philosophy of the complex vision means by 
the revelation of conscience. 

Ethics with William James swallows up philosophy and 
in swallowing up philosophy the nature of Ethics is changed 
and becomes something different from the clear unqualified 
mandate of the human conscience. With the philosophy 
of the complex vision the revelations of conscience are 
intimately associated with the revelations of the aesthetic 



306 THE COMPLEX VISION 

sense; and these again, in the rhythmic totality of man's 
nature, with the revelations of emotion, instinct, intuition, 
imagination. 

Thus when it comes to conduct and the question of choice 
the kind of " imperative ■ ' issued by conscience has been 
already profoundly changed. It is 'still the mandate of 
conscience. But it is the mandate of a conscience whose 
search-light has been taken possession of by the aesthetic 
sense and has been fed by imagination, instinct and in- 
tuition. 

It must be understood when we speak of these various 
"aspects" or "attributes" of the human soul we do not 
imply that they exist as separable faculties independently 
of the unity of the soul which possesses them. 

The soul is an integral and indivisible monad and throws 
its whole strength along each of these lines of contact with 
the world. As will, the soul flings itself upon the world 
in the form of choice between opposite valuations. As 
conscience, it flings itself upon the world in the form of 
motive force of opposite valuations. As the aesthetic sense, 
it flings itself upon the world in the form of yet another 
motive-force of opposite valuations. As imagination, it 
half-creates and half-discovers the atmospheric climate, so 
to speak, of this valuation. As intuition, it feels itself to 
be in possession of a super-terrestrial, super-human author- 
ity which gives objective definiteness and security to this 
valuation. As instinct, it feels its way by an innate clair- 
voyance into the organic or biological vibrations of this 
valuation. 

Thus we return to the point from which we started, 
namely that the whole problem of philosophy is the prob- 
lem of valuation. And this is the same thing as saying 
that philosophy, considered in its essential nature, is noth- 
ing less than art — the art of flinging itself upon the 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 307 

world with all the potentialities of the soul functioning in 
rhythmic harmony. 

When Bergson talks of the "elan vital' ' and suggests 
that the acts of choice of the human personality are made 
as naturally and inevitably, under the pressure of the 
"shooting out" of the spirit, as leaves grow upon the tree, 
he is falling into the old traditional blunder of all panthe- 
istic and monistic thinkers, the blunder namely of at- 
tributing to a universal "God" or "life-force" or "stream 
of tendency" the actual personal achievements of indi- 
vidual souls. 

Bergson 's "apologia" for free-will is therefore rendered 
ineffective by reason of the fact that it does not really 
leave the individual free. The only "free" thing is the 
aboriginal "spirit," pouring forth in its "durational" 
stream, and moulding bodies and brains as it goes along. 

The philosophy of the complex vision does not believe in 
"spirit" or "life-force" or "durational streams of tend- 
ency." Starting with personality it is not incumbent 
upon it to show how personality has been evolved. It is 
no more incumbent upon it to show how personality has 
been evolved than it is incumbent upon pantheistic ideal- 
ism to show how God or how the Absolute has been evolved. 
Personality with its implication of separate concrete psycho- 
material soul-monads is indeed our Absolute or at any rate 
is as much of an Absolute as we can ever get while we 
continue to recognize the independent existence of one 
universal space, of one universal ethereal medium, and of 
onpuniversal objective mystery. 

Perhaps the correct metaphysical statement of our 
philosophic position would be that our Absolute is a du- 
ality from the very start — a duality made up on one 
side of innumerable soul-monads and on the other side 
of an incomprehensible formless mass of plastic material, 



308 THE COMPLEX VISION 

itself subdivided into the two aspects of a medium binding 
the soul-monads together, and an objective mystery into 
which they pierce their way. 

When the evolutionists tell us that personality is a 
thing of late appearance in the system of things and a 
thing of which we are able to note the historic or pre- 
historic development, out of the " lower" forms of life, 
our answer is that we have no right to assume that the life 
of the earth and of the other planetary and stellar bodies 
is a ' 'lower" form of life. 

If to this the astronomer answer that he is able to carry 
the history of evolution further back than any planet or 
star, as far back as a vast floating mass of homogeneous 
fiery vapour, even then we should still maintain that this 
original nebular mass of fire was the material "body" 
of an integral soul-monad; and that in surrounding im- 
mensities of space there were other similar masses of 
nebular fire — possibly innumerable others — who in their 
turn were the bodily manifestations of integral soul- 
monads. 

When evolutionists argue that personality is a late and 
accidental appearance on the world scene, they are only 
thinking of human personalities; and our contention is 
that while man has a right to interpret the universe in 
terms of his soul, he has no right to interpret the universe 
in terms of his body ; and that it is therefore quite possible 
to maintain that the "body" of the earth has been from the 
beginning animated by a soul-monad whose life can in no 
sense be called "lower" than the life of the soul-monad 
which at present animates the human body. And in sup- 
port of our contention just here we are able to quote not 
only the authority of Fechner but the authority of Pro- 
fessor James himself approving of Fechner. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision really does 
is to take life just as it is — the ordinary multifarious 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 309 

spectacle presented to our senses and interpreted by our 
imagination — and regard this, and nothing more recon- 
dite than this, as the ultimate Absolute, or as near an Ab- 
solute as we are ever likely to get. 

From our point of view it seems quite uncalled for to 
summon up vague and remote entities, like streams of 
consciousness and shootings forth of spirit, in order to in- 
terpret this immediate spectacle. Such streams of con- 
sciousness and shootings forth of spirit seem to us just 
as much abstractions and just as much conceptual sub- 
stitutions for reality as do the old-fashioned metaphysical 
entities of " being' ' and " becoming. ' ' 

No one has ever seen a life-stream or a life-force. No 
one has ever seen a compounded congeries of conscious 
states. But every one of us has seen a living human soul 
looking out of a living human body; and most of us have 
seen a living soul looking out of the mysterious countenance 
of earth, water, air and fire. 

The philosophy of the soul-monad has at any rate this 
advantage over every other: namely, that it definitely 
represents human experience and can always be verified 
by human experience. Any human being can try the ex- 
periment of sinking into the depths of his own identity. 
Let the reader of this passage try such an experiment 
here and now; and let him, in the light of what he finds, 
decide this question. Does he find himself flowing mys- 
teriously forth, along some indescribable "durational" 
stream, and, as he flows, feeling himself to be that stream? 
Or does he feel himself to be a definite concrete actual "I 
am I," "the guest and companion of his body" and, as 
far as the mortal weakness of flesh allows, the motive- 
principle of that body ? 

If the philosophy of the complex vision is able to make 
an appeal of this kind with a certain degree of assurance 
as to the answer, it is able to make a yet more convincing 



310 THE COMPLEX VISION 

appeal, when — the soul's existence once admitted — it 
becomes a question as to that soul's inherent quality. 
No human being, unless in the grasp of some megalomania 
of virtue, can deny the existence, in the depths of his nature, 
of a struggle between the emotion of love and the emotion 
of malice. 

Out of this ultimate duality under the pressure of the 
forms and shapes of life and the reaction against these of 
the imagination and the aesthetic sense, spring into exist- 
ence those primordial ideas of truth and beauty and good- 
ness which, are the very stuff and texture of our fate. 
But these ideas, primordial though they are, are so con- 
fused and distorted by their contact with circumstances 
aud accident, that it may well be that no clear image of 
them is found in the recesses of the soul when the soul 
turns its glance inward. 

No soul, however, can turn its glance inward without 
recognizing in its deepest being this ultimate struggle be- 
tween love and malice. How then can any philosophy 
be regarded as a transcript and reflection of reality when 
at the very start it refuses to take cognizance of this fact ? 
If the only knowledge, which is in any sense certain, is 
our knowledge of ourselves, and if our knowledge of our- 
selves implies our knowledge of a definite "soul-monad" 
for ever divided against itself in this abysmal struggle, 
how then may a philosophy be regarded as covering the facts 
of experience, when in place of this personal contradic- 
tion it predicates, as its explanation of the system of 
things, some remote, thin, abstract tendency, such as the 
"shooting forth of spirit" or the compounding of states 
of consciousness"? 

The whole matter may be thus summed up. The modern 
tendencies of thought which we have been considering, get 
rid of the old metaphysical notion of the logical Absolute 
only to substitute vague psychological "states of con- 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 311 

in its place. But what philosophy requires, 
I if the facts of introspective experience are to be trusted, is 
neither an Absolute in whose identity all difference is lost, 
nor a stream of " states of consciousness" which is sus- 
pended, as it were, in a vacuum. 

What philosophy requires is the recognition of real 
actual persons whose original revelation of the secret of 
life implies that abysmal duality of good and evil beyond 
the margin of which no living soul has ever passed. 
Whether or not this concrete " monad " or living sub- 
stratum of personality survives the death of the body is 
quite a different question; is in fact a question to which 
the philosophy of the complex vision can make no definite 
response. In this matter all we can say is that those su- 
preme moments of rhythmic ecstasy, whose musical equilib- 
rium I have indicated in the expression "apex-thought," 
establish for us a conclusive certainty as to the eternal 
continuance, beyond the scope of all deaths, of that in- 
destructible aspect of personality we have come to name 
the struggle between love and malice. 

With the conclusive consciousness of this there neces- 
sarily arises a certain attitude of mind which is singu- 
larly difficult to decribe but which I can hint at in the 
following manner. In the very act of recognition, in the 
act by which we apprehend the secret of the universe to 
consist in this abysmal struggle of the emotion of love 
with the emotion of malice, there is an implication of a 
complete acceptance of whatever the emotion of love or 
the principle of love is found to demand, as the terms of 
its relative victory over its antagonist. Whether this de- 
mand of love, or to put it more exactly this demand of 
"all souls" in whom love is dominant, actually issues in 
a personal survival after death we are not permitted to 
feel with any certainty. But what we feel with certainty, 
when the apex-thought of the complex vision reaches its 



312 THE COMPLEX VISION 

consummation, is that we find our full personal self-realiza- 
tion and happiness in a complete acceptance of whatever 
the demand of love may be. And this is the case because 
the ultimate happiness and fulfilment of personality does 
not depend upon what may have happened to personality 
in the past or upon what may happen to personality in the 
future but solely and exclusively upon what personality 
demands here and now in the apprehension of the un- 
assailable moment. 

This suspension of judgment therefore in regard to the 
question of the immortality of the soul is a suspension of 
judgment implicit in the very nature of love itself. For 
if there were anything in the world nearer the secret of 
the world than is this duality of love and malice, then 
that alien thing, however we thought of it, would be the 
true object of the soul's desire and the victory of love over 
malice would fall into the second place. 

If instead of the soul's desire being simply the victory 
of love over malice it were, so to speak, the "material 
fruit" of such a victory — namely, the survival of per- 
sonality after death — then, in place of the struggle be- 
tween love and malice, we should be compelled to regard 
personality in itself, apart from the nature of that per- 
sonality, as the secret of the universe. But as we have 
repeatedly shown, it is impossible to think of any living 
personality apart from this abysmal dualism, the ebb and 
flow of which, with the relative victory of love over malice, 
is our ultimate definition of what living personality is. 
The emotion of love abstracted from personality is not the 
secret of the universe, because personality in its concrete 
living activity is the secret of the universe. It is this very 
abstraction of love, isolated from any person who loves, and 
projected as an abstract into the void, that has done so 
much to undermine religious thought, just as that other 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 313 

absolute of "pure being" has done so much to undermine 
philosophic thought. 

Love and malice are unthinkable apart from personality ; 
but personality divorced from the struggle between love 
and malice is something worse than unthinkable. It is 
something most tragically thinkable. It is in fact the 
plain reality of death. A dead body is a body in which 
the struggle between love and malice has completely 
ceased. A dead planet would be a planet in which the 
struggle between love and malice had ceased. We cannot 
speak of a "dead soul" because the soul is, according to 
our original definition, the very fusion-point and vortex- 
point where not only consciousness and energy meet but 
where love and malice meet and wage their eternal 
struggle. 

Strictly speaking it is not true to say that the ultimate 
secret of the universe is the emotion of love. The emotion 
of love, just because it is an emotion, is the emotion of a 
personality. It is personality, not the emotion of love, 
which is the secret of the universe, which is, in fact, the very 
universe itself. But it is personality considered in its 
true concrete life, not as a mere abstraction devoid of all 
characteristics, which is this basic thing. And personality 
thus considered is, as we have seen, a living battleground of 
two ultimate emotions. The complete triumph of love over 
malice would mean the extinction of personality and fol- 
lowing from this the extinction of the universe. 

Thus what the soul's desire really amounts to, in those 
rhythmic moments when its diverse aspects are reduced to 
harmonious energy, is not the complete victory of love 
over malice but only a relative victory. What it really 
desires is that malice should still exist, but that it should 
exist in subordination to love. 

The ideal of the soul therefore in its creative moments 



314 THE COMPLEX VISION 

is the process of the overcoming of malice, not the comple- 
tion of this process. In order to be perpetually overcome 
by love, malice must remain existent, must remain ' * still 
there." If it ceased to be there, there would be nothing 
left for love to overcome; and the ebb and flow of the 
universe, its eternal contradictions, would be at an end. 
The soul 's desire, according to this view, is not a life after 
death where malice, shall we say, is completely overcome 
and "good" completely triumphant. The soul's desire is 
that malice, or evil, should continue to exist; but should 
continue to exist under the triumphant hand of love. The 
desire of the soul, in such ultimate moments, has nothing 
to do with the survival of the soul after death. It has to 
do with an acceptance of the demand of love. And what 
love demands is not that malice should disappear ; but that 
it should for ever exist, in order that love should for ever 
be overcoming it. And the ecstasy of this process, of this 
" overcoming, ' ' is a thing of single moments, moments 
which, as they pass, not only reduce both past and future 
to an eternal "now" but annihilate everything else but 
this eternal "now." This annihilation of the past does 
not mean the extinction of memory or the extinction of 
hope. It only means that the profoundest of our mem- 
ories are ' ' brought over " as it were from the past into the 
present. It only means that a formless horizon of im- 
mense hope, indefinite and vague, hovers above the present, 
to give it spaciousness and freedom. 

The revelation of the complex vision does not therefore 
answer the question of the immortality of the soul. What 
it does is to indicate the degree of importance of any an- 
swer to this question. And this degree of importance is 
much smaller than in our less harmonious moments we are 
inclined to suppose. At certain complacent moments the 
soul finds itself praying for some final assurance of per- 
sonal survival. At certain other moments the soul is 



THE REALITY OP THE SOUL 315 

tempted to pray for complete annihilation. But at the 
moments when it is most entirely itself it neither prays 
for annihilation nor for immortality. It does not pray 
for itself at all. It prays that the will of the gods may be 
done. It prays that the power of love in every soul in the 
universe may hold the power of malice in subjection. 

The soul therefore, revealed as a real substantial living 
thing by the complex vision, is not revealed as a thing 
necessarily exempt from death, but as a thing whose deep- 
est activity renders it free from the fear of death. 

In considering the nature of the contrast between the 
philosophy of the complex vision and the most dominant 
philosophic tendencies of the present time it is important 
to make clear what our attitude is towards that hypo- 
thetical assumption usually known as the Theory of Evo- 
lution. 

If what is called Evolution means simply change, then 
we have not the least objection to the word. The universe 
obviously changes. It is undergoing a perpetual series 
of violent and revolutionary changes. But it does not 
necessarily improve or progress. On the contrary during 
enormous periods of time it deteriorates. Both progress 
and deterioration are of course purely human valuations. 
But according to our valuation of good and evil it may be 
said that during those epochs when the malicious, the 
predatory, the centripetal tendency in life predominates 
over the creative and centrifugal tendency, there is deteri- 
oration and degeneracy; and during the epochs when the 
latter overcomes the former there is growth and improve- 
ment. 

It is quite obvious that from our point of view, there is 
no such thing as inanimate chemical substance, no such 
isolated evolutionary phases of " matter,' ' such as the 
movements from "solids" to "liquids," from "liquids" to 
"gases," from "gases" to "ether," from "ether" to 



316 THE COMPLEX VISION 

' ' electro-magnetism. ' ' All these apparent changes must be 
regarded as nothing less than the living organic changes 
taking place in the living bodies of actual personal souls. 

According to our view the real and important variations 
in the multiform spectacle of the universe are the variations 
brought about by the perpetual struggle between life and 
death, in other words between the personal energy of crea- 
tion and the personal resistance of malice. 

For us the universe of bodies and souls is perpetually 
re-creating itself by the mysterious process of birth, per- 
petually destroying itself by the mysterious process of 
death. 

It is this eternal struggle between the impulse to create 
new life and the impulse to resist the creation of life, and 
to destroy or to petrify life, which actually causes all move- 
ment in things and all change; movement sometimes for- 
ward and sometimes backward as the great pendulum and 
rhythm of existence swings one way or the other. 

And even this generalization does not really cover what 
we regard as the facts of the case, because this backward 
or forward movement, though capable of being weighed and 
estimated ' ' en masse ' ' in the erratic and violent changes of 
history, is in reality a thing of particular and individual 
instances, a thing that ultimately affects nothing but indi- 
viduals and personalities, in as much as it is the weighing 
and balancing of a struggle which takes place nowhere else 
except in the arena of concrete separate and personal 
souls. 

What is usually called Evolution then, and what may 
just as reasonably be called Deterioration, is as far as we 
are concerned just a matter of perpetual movement and 
change. 

The living personalities that fill the circle of space are 
perpetually reproducing themselves in a series of organic 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 317 

births, and perpetually passing away in the process of 
death. 

We have also to remember that every living organism, 
whether such an organism resemble that of a planet or a 
human being, is itself the dwelling-place of innumerable 
other living organisms dependent on it and drawing their 
life from it, precisely as their parent organism depends on, 
and draws its life from, the omnipresent universal ether. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision denies and 
refutes is the modern tendency to escape from the real 
mystery of existence by the use of such vague hypothetical 
metaphors, all of them really profoundly anthropomorphic, 
such as ''life-force" or " hyper-space" or " magnetic en- 
ergy" or "streams of sub-consciousness." 

The philosophy of the complex vision drives these 
pseudo-philosophers to the wall and compels them to con- 
fess that ultimately all they are aware of is the inner per- 
sonal activity of their own individual souls; compels them 
to confess that when it comes to the final analysis their 
"life-force" and "pure thought" and "hyper-space" and 
"radio-magnetic activity" are all nothing but one-sided 
hypothetical abstractions taken from the concrete move- 
ments of concrete individual bodies and souls which by an 
inevitable act of the imagination we assume to reproduce 
in their interior reactions what we ourselves experience o 
in ours. 

To introduce such a conception as that of those mysteri- 
ous super human beings, whom I have named "the gods," 
into a serious philosophic system, may well appear to 
many modern scientific minds the very height of absurdity. 

But the whole method of the philosophy of the complex 
vision is based upon direct human experience; and from 
my point of view the obscure and problematic existence of 
some such beings has behind it the whole formidable weight 



318 THE COMPLEX VISION 

of universal human feeling — a weight which is not made 
less valid by the arrogant use of mere phrases of rational- 
istic contempt such as that which is implied in the word 
"superstition." 

From our point of view a philosophy which does not in- 
clude and subsume and embody that universal human ex- 
perience covered by the term ' ' superstition ' ' is a philosophy 
that has eliminated from its consideration one great slice 
of actual living fact. And it is in this aspect of the prob- 
lem more than in any other that the philosophy of the Com- 
plex Vision represents a return to certain revelations of 
human truth — call them mythological if you please — which 
modern philosophy seems to have deliberately suppressed. 
In the final result it may well be that we have to choose, as 
our clue to the mystery of life, either "mathematica" or 
" mythology. " 

The philosophy of the complex vision is compelled by 
the very nature of its organ of research to choose, in this 
dilemma, the latter rather than the former. And the uni- 
verse which it thus dares to predicate is at least a universe 
that lends itself, as so many "scientific" universes do not, 
to that synthetic activity of the imaginative reason which 
in the long run alone satisfies the soul. And such a uni- 
verse satisfies the soul, as these others cannot, because it 
reflects, in its objective spectacle of things, the profoundest 
interior consciousness of the actual living self which the 
soul in its deepest moments of introspection is able to grasp. 

Modern science, under the rhetorical spell of this talis- 
manic word ! ' evolution, ' ' seems to imply that it can explain 
the multiform shapes and appearances of organic life by 
deducing them, in all their vivid heterogeneity, from some 
hypothetical monistic substance which it boldly endows 
with the mysterious energy called the "life-force" and 
which it then permits to project out of itself, by some sort 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 319 

of automatic volition, the whole long historic procession of 
living organisms. 

This purely imaginative assumption gives it, in the popu- 
lar mind, a sort of vague right to make the astounding 
claim that it has "explained" the origin of things. Little 
further arrogance is needed to give it, in the popular mind, 
the still more astounding right to claim that it has indi- 
cated not only the nature of the "beginning" of things but 
the nature of their "end" also; this "end" being nothing 
less than some purely hypothetical "equilibrium" when 
the movement of "advance," coming full circle, rounds 
itself off into the movement of "reversion." 

The philosophy of the complex vision makes no claim 
to deal either with the beginning of things or with the end 
of things. It recognizes that "beginnings" and "ends" 
are not things with which we can intelligibly deal ; are, on 
the contrary, things which are completely unthinkable. 

What we actually see, feel, divine, imagine, love, hate, 
detest, desire, dream, create and destroy, — these living, 
dying, struggling, relaxing, advancing and retreating 
things — this space, this ether, these stars and suns, these 
animals, fishes, birds, plants, this earth and moon, these 
men and these trees and flowers, these high and unchanging 
eternal ideas of the beautiful and the good, these transitory 
perishing mortal lives and these dimly discerned immortal 
figures that we name "gods," all these, as far as we are 
concerned, have for ever existed, all these, as far as we are 
concerned, must for ever exist. 

In the immense procession of deaths and births, it is 
indeed certain that the soul and body of the Earth have 
given birth to all the souls and bodies which struggle for 
existence upon her living flesh and draw so much of their 
love and their malice from the unfathomable depths of 
her spirit. But when once we accept as our basic axiom 



320 THE COMPLEX YISION 

that where the "soul-monad" exists, whether such a 
"monad" be human, sub-human, or super-human, it exists 
in actual concrete organic personal integrity, we are saved 
from the necessity of explaining how, and by what particu- 
lar series of births and deaths and change and variation, 
the living spectacle of things, as we visualize it today, has 
"evolved" or has "deteriorated" out of the remote past. 

It is in fact by their constant preoccupation with the 
immediate and material causes of such organic changes, 
that men of science have been distracted from the real 
mystery. This real mystery does not limit itself to the 
comparatively unimportant "How," but is constantly call- 
ing upon us to deal with the terrible and essential ques- 
tions, the two grim interrogations of the old Sphinx, the 
"What" and the " Wherefore. " 

It is by its power to deal with these more essential riddles 
that any philosophy must be weighed and judged ; and it is 
just because what we name Science stops helplessly at this 
unimportant "How," that it can never be said to have 
answered Life's uttermost challenge. 

Materialistic and Evolutionary Hypotheses must always, 
however far they may go in reducing so-called " matter" 
to so-called "spirit," remain outside the real problem. 
No attentuation of "matter" into movement or energy or 
magnetic radio-activity can reach the impregnable citadel 
of life. For the citadel of life is to be found in nothing 
less than the complex of personality — whether such per- 
sonality be that of a planet or a plant or an animal or a 
man or a god — must always be recognized as inherent in an 
actual living soul-monad, divided against itself in the ever- 
lasting duality. 

Although the most formidable support to our theory of 
an ' ' eternal vision, ' ' wherein all the living entities that fill 
space under the vibration of an unspeakable cosmic rhythm 
and brought into focus by one supreme act of contempla- 



THE REALITY OF THE SOUL 321 

tive "love," is drawn from the rare creative moments of 
what I have called the "apex-thought," it still remains that 
for the normal man in his most normal hours the purely 
scientific view is completely unsatisfying. 

I do not mean that it is unsatisfying because, with its 
mechanical determinism, it does not satisfy his desires. 
I mean that it does not satisfy his imagination, his instinct, 
his intuition, his emotion, his aesthetic sense ; and in being 
unable to satisfy these, it proves itself, " ipso-f acto, " false 
and equivocal. 

It is equally true that, except for certain rare and privi- 
leged natures, the orthodox systems of religion are equally 
unsatisfying. 

What is required is some philosophic system which is 
bold enough to include the element of so-called "super- 
stition" and at the same time contradicts neither reason nor 
the aesthetic sense. 

Such a system, we contend, is supplied by the philosophy 
of the complex vision; a philosophy which, while remain- 
ing frankly anthropomorphic and mythological, does not, 
in any narrow or impudent or complacent manner, slur 
over the bitter ironies of this cruel world, or love the clear 
outlines of all drastic issues in a vague, unintelligible, un- 
aesthetic idealism. 

What our philosophy insists upon is that the modern 
tendency to reduce everything to some single monistic 
"substance," which, by the blind process of "evolution," 
becomes all this passionate drama that we see, is a tendency 
utterly false and misleading. For us the universe is a much 
larger, freer, stranger, deeper, more complicated affair 
than that. 

For us the universe contains possibilities of real ghastly, 
incredible evil, descending into spiritual depths, before 
which the normal mind may well shudder and turn dis- 
mayed away. 



322 THE COMPLEX VISION 

For us the universe contains possibilities of divine, 
magical, miraculous good, ascending into spiritual heights 
and associating itself with immortal super-human beings, 
before which the mind of the merely logical intelligence 
may well pause, baffled, puzzled, and obscurely indignant. 

The "fulcrum" upon which the whole issue depends, the 
"pivot" upon which it turns, is the existence of actual liv- 
ing souls filling the immense spaces of nature. 

If there is no "soul" in any living thing, then our 
whole system crumbles to pieces. If there are living 
"souls" in every living thing, then the universe, as re- 
vealed by the complex vision, is more real than the universe 
as revealed by the chief exponents of modern thought. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 

The philosophy of the complex vision inevitably issues, 
when it is applied to political and economic conditions, in 
the idea of communism. The idea of communism is in- 
herent in it from the beginning; and in communism, and 
in communism alone, does it find its objective and external 
expression. 

The philosophy of the complex vision reveals, as we have 
seen, a certain kind of ultimate duality as the secret of 
life. This ultimate duality remains eternally unrecon- 
ciled ; for it is a duality within the circle of every personal 
soul; and the fact that every personal soul is surrounded 
by an incomprehensible substance under the dominion of 
time and space, does not reconcile these eternal antago- 
nists; because these eternal antagonists are for ever un- 
fathomable, even as the personal soul, of which they are 
the conflicting conditions, is itself for ever unfathomable. 

It is therefore a perpetual witness to the truth that the 
idea of communism is the inevitable expression of the com- 
plex vision that this idea should, more than other idea in 
the world, divide the souls of men into opposite camps. 
If the idea of communism were not the inevitable expres- 
sion of the philosophy of the complex vision as applied to 
human life it would be an idea with regard to which all 
human souls would hold infinitely various opinions. 

But this is not the case. In regard to the idea of com- 
munism we do not find this infinite variety of opinion. 
We find, on the contrary, a definite and irreconcilable du- 

323 



324 THE COMPLEX VISION 

ality of thought. Human souls are divided on this matter 
not, as they are on other matters, into a motley variety of 
convictions but into two opposite and irreconcilable con- 
victions, unfathomably hostile to one another. 

There is no other question, no other issue, about which 
the souls of men are divided so clearly and definitely into 
two opposite camps. The question of the existence of a 
''parent of the universe " does not divide them so clearly; 
because it always remains possible for any unbeliever in a 
spiritual unity of this absolute kind to use the term 
1 'parent," if he pleases, for that incomprehensible "sub- 
stance" under the dominion of space and time which takes 
the triple form of the "substance" out of which the sub- 
stratum of the soul is made, the "substance" out of which 
the "objective mystery" is made, and the substance out 
of which is made the surrounding "medium" which holds 
all personal souls together. 

The question of the mortality or the immortality of the 
soul does not divide them so clearly; because such a ques- 
tion is entirely insoluble; and a vivid consciousness of its 
insolubility accompanies all argument. The question of 
race does not divide them so clearly; because both with 
regard to race and with regard to class the division is very 
largely a superficial thing, dependent upon public opinion 
and upon group-consciousness and leaving many individu- 
als on each side entirely unaffected. 

The question of sex does not divide them so clearly; 
because there are always innumerable examples of noble 
and ignoble treachery to the sex-instinct ; not to speak of a 
certain intellectual neutrality which refuses to be biased. 
The idea of communism is on the contrary so profoundly 
associated with the original revelation of the complex 
vision that it must be regarded as the inevitable expression 
of all the attributes of this vision when such attributes are 
reduced to a rhythmic harmony. 



THE IDEA OP COMMUNISM 325 

That this is no speculative hypothesis but a real fact of 
experience can be proved by any sincere act of personal 
introspection. 

The philosophy of the complex vision is based upon 
those rare and supreme moments when the soul's "apex- 
thought " quivers like an arrow in the very heart of the 
surrounding darkness. By any honest act of introspec- 
tion we can recall to memory the world-deep revelations 
which are thus obtained. And among these revelations 
the one most vivid and irrefutable, as far as human asso- 
ciation is concerned, is the revelation of the idea of com- 
munism. 

So vivid and so dominant is this idea, that it may be said 
that no motive which drives or obsesses the will in the 
sphere of external relations can approach or rival it in 
importance. And that this is so can be proved by the fact 
that the opposite of this idea, namely the idea of private 
property, is found when we analyse the content of our 
profoundest instincts to be in perpetual conflict with the 
idea of communism. 

And the inevitableness of the world-deep struggle be- 
tween these two ideas is proved by the fact that in no 
other way, as soon as the objective world is introduced at 
all, can we conceive of love and malice as expressing them- 
selves. Love must naturally express itself in the desire to 
"have all things in common"; and malice must naturally 
express itself in the desire to have as little as possible in 
common and as much as possible for ourselves alone. 

The "possessive instinct," although it may often be 
found accompanying like an evil shadow some of the 
purest movements of love, must be recognized as eternally 
arising out of the depths of the power opposed to love. If 
we have any psychological clairvoyance we can disentangle 
this base element from some of the most passionate forms 
of the sexual instinct and from some of the most passion- 



326 THE COMPLEX [VISION 

ate forms of the maternal instinct. It is undeniable 
that the possessive instinct does accompany both these 
emotions and we are compelled to recognize that, when- 
ever or wherever it appears, it is the expression of the 
direct opposite of love. 

So inevitably does the complex vision manifest itself in 
the idea of communism that it would be legitimate to say 
that the main object of human life as we know it at present 
is the realization of the ideas of truth and beauty and 
nobility in a world-wide communistic state. 

As far as the human soul in our present knowledge of 
it is concerned there is no other synthesis possible except 
this synthesis. And there is no other synthesis possible 
except this, because this and this alone realizes the ideal 
which the abysmal power of love implies. And the power 
of love implies this ideal because the power of love is the 
only unity which fuses together the ideas of reality and 
beauty and nobility; and because it is impossible to con- 
ceive the power of love as embodying itself in these ideas 
except in a world-wide communistic state. 

We are able to prove that this is no speculative hypo- 
thesis but a fact based upon experience, by a consideration 
of the opposite ideal. For evil, as we have hinted in many 
places, has its ideal. The ideal of evil, or of what I call 
"malice," is the annihilation of the will to creation. This 
ideal of malice is in fact an obstinate and continuous re- 
sistance to the power of creation; a resistance carried so 
far as to reduce everything that exists to eternal non- 
existence. The profoundest experience of the human soul 
is to be found in the unfathomable struggle that goes on 
in the depths between "the ideal of evil" which is universal 
death and "the ideal of love" which is universal life. 

Reason and sensation are used in turn by this abysmal 
malice of the soul, to establish and make objective "the 
idea of nothingness." Thus reason, driven on by the 



THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 327 

power of malice, derives exquisite satisfaction from the 
theory of the automatism of the will. 

The theory of the automatism of the will, the theory 
that the will is only an illusive name for a pre-determined 
congeries of irresistible motives, is a theory that lends 
itself to the ideal of universal death. It is a theory that 
diminishes, and reduces to a minimum, the identity of the 
personal soul. And therefore it is a theory which the iso- 
lated reason, divorced from imagination and instinct, 
fastens upon and exults in. 

The isolated reason, in league with pure sensation and 
divorced from instinct, becomes very quickly a slave of the 
abysmal power of malice ; and the pleasure which it derives 
from the contemplation of a mechanical universe predes- 
tined and pre-determined, a universe out of which the 
personal soul has been completely expurgated, is a pleasure 
derived directly from the power of malice, exulting in the 
idea of eternal death. 

Philosophers are very crafty in these things; and it is 
necessary to discriminate between that genuine passion 
for reality which derived from the power of love and that 
exultant pleasure in a "frightful" reality which is de- 
rived from intellectual sadism and from the unfathomable 
malice of the soul. 

Between a philosophic pessimism which springs from 
a genuine passion for reality and from a pure "pity" 
for tortured sentient things, and a philosophic pessimism 
which springs from a cruel pleasure in atrocious situations 
and an ambiguous "pity" for tortured sentient things 
there is an eternity of difference. 

It needs however something almost like a clairvoyance 
to recognize this difference; and such a clairvoyance can 
only be obtained when, as in the case of Christ, the soul 
becomes aware of its own unfathomable possibilities of good 
and evil. 



328 THE COMPLEX VISION 

A careful and implacable analysis of the two camps of 
opinion into which the idea of communism divides the 
world reveals to us the fact that the philosophical advo- 
cates of private property draw a certain malignant pleas- 
ure from insisting that the possessive instinct is the strong- 
est instinct in humanity. 

This is tantamount to saying that the power of malice is 
the strongest instinct in humanity; whereas, if the power 
of malice had not already been relatively overcome by the 
power of love there would be no "humanity" at all. But 
the philosophical advocates of private property do not con- 
fine themselves to this malign insistence upon the basic 
greediness of human nature. They are in the habit of 
twisting their arguments completely around and speaking 
of the "rights" of property and of the "wholesome" value 
of the "natural instinct" to possess property. 

This "natural instinct to possess property" becomes, 
when they so defend it, something which we assume to be 
"good" and "noble," and not something which we are 
compelled to recognize as "evil" and "base." 

It is necessary to keep these two arguments quite sepa- 
rate in our minds and not to allow the philosophical ad- 
vocates of private property to confuse them. If the as- 
sumption is that the instinct to possess property is a 
"good" instinct, an instinct springing from the power of 
love in the human soul, then what we have to do is to 
subject this "good instinct" to an inflexible analysis; un- 
der the process of which such ' ' goodness ' ' will be found to 
transform itself into the extreme opposite of goodness. 

If the assumption is that the instinct to possess property 
is an evil instinct, but an instinct which is the strongest 
of all human instincts and therefore one which it is insane 
to attempt to resist, then what we have to do is to prove 
that the instinct or the emotion of love is stronger than the 
instinct or the emotion of malice and so essential to the 



THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 329 

life of the soul that if it had not already relatively over- 
come the emotion of malice, the personal soul would never 
have become what it has become ; in fact would never have 
existed at all, since its mere existence depends upon the 
relative victory of love over malice, 

In dealing with the former of these two arguments, 
namely that the instinct to possess property is a "good" 
instinct, it is advisable to search for some test of "good- 
ness" which shall carry a stronger conviction to the mind 
of such biassed philosophers than any appeal to the con- 
science or even to the aesthetic sense. The conscience and 
the aesthetic sense speak with uncompromising finality upon 
this subject and condemn the possessive instinct or the 
instinct to possess property with an unwavering voice. 
As eternal aspects of the complex vision, both conscience 
and the aesthetic sense, when their power is exercised in 
harmony with all the other aspects of the soul, indicate 
with an oracular clearness that the possessive instinct is 
not good but evil. 

The person obsessed by the idea of "nobility" and the 
person obsessed by the idea of "beauty" are both of them 
found to be extraordinarily suspicious of the possessive in- 
stinct and fiercely anxious to destroy its power. But the 
test more likely to appeal to the type of philosopher whose 
business it is to defend the institution of private property 
is the simple test of reality. Keality or "truth," much 
more than nobility or beauty, is the idea in the soul which 
is outraged by the illusion of the value of private property. 

For the illusion of the value of private property is like 
the "illusion of dead matter." It is a half-truth projected 
by the power of malice. The inherent unreality of the 
illusion of the value of private property can be proved by 
the simplest examination of the facts. The illusion draws 
its strength from a false appeal to the genuine and basic 
necessities of the human mind and the human body. 



330 THE COMPLEX VISION 

These necessities demand adequate food, adequate cloth- 
ing, adequate shelter and adequate leisure. They also 
demand freedom, beauty, happiness, a considerable degree 
of solitude, and final relief from the intolerable fear of 
poverty. But the economic and intellectual resources of 
the human race are perfectly capable of providing all these 
things for all human beings within the limits of a com- 
munistic society. These things and the legitimate demand 
for these things must not be confused with the illusion 
of the value of private property. Nor must the illu- 
sion of the value of private property be permitted to 
fortify its insecure position by a false appeal to these real 
values. 

The astounding achievements of modern science have 
brought to light two things. They have brought to light 
the fact that no human or social unit short of the interna- 
tional unit of the whole race can adequately deal with the 
resources of the planet. And they have brought to light 
the fact that this inevitable internationalizing of economic 
production must be accompanied by a co-operative inter- 
nationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous cha- 
otic conflict is to be avoided. 

The real values of sufficient food, clothing, shelter, 
leisure, and solitude can be secured for every human be- 
ing inhabiting this planet, under a far from perfect or- 
ganization of world-production and world-distribution. 
The astounding achievements of modern science have made 
this possible. It only requires a reasonable and not by 
any means an ideal co-operation to make it actual. 

The achievements of modern science, especially in the 
sphere of industrial machinery, have made it possible for 
every human being to have sufficient food, clothing, shel- 
ter, leisure and solitude. Man, in this sense, has already 
conquered Nature; and has secured for his progeny how- 
ever indefinitely increased, and for the frail and incompe- 






THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 331 

tent ones of his race, however indefinitely increased, a more 
than sufficient supply of these primal necessities. 

The extraordinary power of international co-operation 
has been recently displayed during the years of the war 
in the production of engines of destruction. Far less co- 
operation applied to the problems of production could se- 
cure for an indefinitely multiplied population, including 
all derelicts and all incompetents, such primal necessities 
of life as normal persons demand. The resources of this 
planet, as long as scientific distribution follows close upon 
scientific production, are sufficient to maintain in food, 
in shelter, in clothing, in leisure, in reasonable comfort, 
any human progeny. 

What then is the principal cause why, as things are now, 
such lamentable poverty and such huge fear of lamentable 
poverty dominate the human situation? The cause is not 
far to seek. It lies in the very root and ground of our 
existing commercial and industrial system. It lies in the 
fact that economic production by reason of the illusive 
value of private enterprise, is directed not towards the 
satisfaction of such universal and primary necessities as 
food, shelter, clothing, leisure and reasonable comfort, but 
towards the creation of unnecessary luxury and artificial 
frippery, towards the piling up, by means of advertise- 
ment, monopoly, exploitation and every kind of chicanery 
of unproductive accumulation of private property. 

Our present commercial and industrial system is based 
upon what is called "free competition. ' ' In other words 
it is based upon the right of private individuals to make 
use of the resources of nature and the energy of labour to 
produce unnecessary wealth, wealth which does little or 
nothing to increase the food, shelter, clothing, leisure and 
comfort of the masses of mankind, wealth which is arti- 
ficially maintained by artificial values and by the fantastic 
process of advertisement. 



332 THE COMPLEX VISION 

In order to make clear and irrefutable the statement that 
the illusive value of private property is, like "the illusion 
of dead matter," a thing conceived, projected and main- 
tained by the aboriginal power of evil, it is necessary to 
prove two things. It is necessary to prove in the first place 
that the idea of private property is neither beautiful nor 
noble nor real. And it is necessary to prove in the second 
place that the defence of the idea of private property 
arouses the most evil and most malignant passions which 
it is possible for the human soul to feel. 

That private property is neither beautiful nor noble can 
be deduced from the fact that in proportion as human 
souls become attuned to finer, more distinguished, and 
more intellectual levels they become more and more in- 
different to the "sensation of ownership." That private 
property is an unreal thing can be deduced from the fact 
that no human being can actually "possess," in a definite, 
positive, and exhaustive manner, more than he can eat or 
drink or wear or otherwise personally enjoy. 

His "sensation of ownership," over lands, houses, gar- 
dens, pictures, statues, books, animals and human beings, 
is really and actually restricted to the immediate and di- 
rect enjoyment which he is able in person to derive from 
such things. Beyond this immediate and personal enjoy- 
ment the extension of his "sensation of ownership" can 
do no more than increase his general sense of conventional 
power and importance. His real "possession" of his land 
is actually restricted to his capacity for appreciating its 
beauty. His real "possession" of his books is actually re- 
stricted to his personal capacity for entering into the liv- 
ing secrets of these things. Without such capacity, though 
he may call himself the "possessor" or "owner," he is 
really no better than an official "care-taker," whose prov- 
ince it is to preserve certain objects for other people to 
enjoy, or, shall we say, for the permanent prevention of 



THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 333 

any people ever enjoying them. And just as the "sensation 
of ownership" or "the idea of private property" is unreal 
and illusive with regard to land, houses, pictures, books, 
and the like so it is unreal and illusive with regard to 
human beings. No one, however maliciously he may hug 
to himself his possessive instinct, can ever actually and 
truly "possess" another living person. 

One's wife, one's paramour, one's child, one's slave, are 
only apparently and by a conventional illusion of language 
one's real and actual "possession." That this is the case 
can be proved by the fact that any of these "human pos- 
sessions" has only to commit suicide, to escape for ever 
from such bondage. 

The illusion of private property derives its vigour and 
its obstinate vividness from two things; from the ap- 
parent increase of power and importance which accom- 
panies it, and from its association with that necessary 
minimum of food, shelter, clothing, leisure, comfort, free- 
dom, solitude, and happiness, which is certainly real, es- 
sential and indispensable. 

The universal wisdom of the ages bears witness to the 
fact that a "moderate poverty" or a "moderate compe- 
tence" is the ideal outward state for a man to find himself 
in. And this "moderate enjoyment" of food, shelter, 
clothing, comfort, leisure and emotional happiness, is a 
thing which, in a scientifically organized communistic so- 
ciety, would be within the reach of even the least efficient. 

The gloomy and melancholy argument brought forward 
by the enemies of "communism" that under such a condi- 
tion "the incentive of private initiative would disappear" 
and that no other motive could take its place, is an argu- 
ment based upon the assumption that human nature de- 
rives more inspiration from the idea of dishonourable greed 
than it derives from the idea of honourable and useful la- 
bour; which is an assumption so wholly opposed to true 



334 THE COMPLEX yiSION 

psychology that it has only to be nakedly stated to be seen 
in its complete absurdity. 

"What the psychologist, interested in this abysmal strug- 
gle between the idea of communism and the idea of pri- 
vate property, has to note is the nature and character of 
the particular individual who brings forward this argu- 
ment of the "incentive of greed" or the " initiative ' ' 
produced by greed. Such an individual will never be 
found to be a great man of science, or a great artist or 
scholar or craftsman, or a first-rate engineer, or a highly 
trained artisan or farmer or builder. 

The individual bringing forward this argument of the 
"initiative of greed" will invariably be found to be a 
member of what might be called the "parasitic class." 
He will either be an intellectually second-rate minister or 
politician or lawyer or professor, or he will be a commercial 
and financial "middleman," whose activities are entirely 
absorbed in the art of exploitation and who has never ex- 
perienced the sensation of creative work. 

If he does not himself belong to the unproductive and 
parasitic class it will be easy to detect in him the unmis- 
takable presence of the emotion of malice. Nowhere is the 
emotion of malice more entirely in harmony with itself 
than when it is engaged in attributing base and sordid 
motives to the energy of human nature. 

This monstrous doctrine that human beings require 
"the incentive of greed" and that without that incentive 
or "initiative" no one would engage in any kind of cre- 
ative work, is a doctrine springing directly from the ab- 
original malice of the soul ; and a doctrine which is refuted 
every day by every honest, healthy and honourable man and 
woman. 

But all these are, after all, only negative proofs of the 
inevitable rise, out of the very necessity of love's nature, 
of the idea of communism. Of all mortal instincts, the 



THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 335 

possessive instinct is the most insidious and most evil. 
Love is for ever being perverted and polluted by this 
thing, and turned from its true essence into something 
other than itself. This is equally true of love whether such 
love is directed towards persons or towards ideas or 
things. 

The possessive instinct springing directly from the 
aboriginal malice is perpetually deceiving itself. Appar- 
ently and superficially what it aims at is the eternally 
" static.' ' In other words what it aims at is the retention 
in everlasting immobility of the person or the idea or the 
thing into which it has dug its claws. 

Thus the maternal instinct, in its evil mood, aims at 
petrifying and rendering immobile that helpless youthful- 
ness in its offspring which the possessive passion finds so 
provocative and exciting. Thus the lover in his evil mood, 
desires that the object of his love should remain in ever- 
lasting immobility, an odalisque of eternal reciprocity. 
That this evil desire takes the form of a longing that the 
object of his love should eternally escape and eternally be 
recaptured makes no difference in the basic feeling. 

Thus the collector of " works of art" — a being divided 
from the real lover of art by an impassable gulf — derives 
no pleasure from the beauty of anything until it has be- 
come his, until he has hidden it away from all the rest of 
the world. Thus the lover of " nature," in his evil mood, 
derives no pleasure from the fitful magic of grass and 
bowers and trees, until he feels happy in the mad illusion 
that the very body of the earth, even to the centre of the 
planet, where these things grow, is his "private" property 
and is something fixed, permanent, static, unchanging. 
But all this desire for the eternally "static" is superficial 
and self -deceiving. 

Analysed down to its very depth, what this evil pos- 
sessive instinct desires is what all malice desires, namely 



336 THE COMPLEX VISION 

the annihilation of life. Pretending to itself that it de- 
sires to hug to itself, in eternal immobility, the thing it 
loves, what in its secret essence it really desires is that 
thing's absolute annihilation. It wants to hug that thing 
so tightly to itself that the independence of the thing com- 
pletely vanishes. It wants to destroy all separation be- 
tween itself and the thing, and all liberty and freedom for 
the thing. It wants "to eat the thing up" and draw the 
thing into its own being. 

Its evil desire can never find complete satisfaction until 
it has "killed the thing it loves" and buried it within its 
own identity. It is this evil possessive element in sexual 
love, whether of a man for a woman or a woman for a 
man, which is the real evil in the sexual passion. It is 
this possessive instinct in maternal love which is the evil 
element in the love of a mother for a child. Both these 
evil emotions tend to make war upon life. 

The mother, in her secret sub-conscious passion, desires 
to draw back her infant into her womb, and restore it to 
its pre-natal physiological unity with herself. The lover 
in his secret evil sub-consciousness, desires to draw his be- 
loved into ever-increasing unity with himself, until the 
separation between them is at an end and her identity is 
lost in his identity. 

The final issue, therefore, of this evil instinct of posses- 
sion, this evil instinct of private property, can never be 
anything else than death. Death is what the ultimate 
emotion of malice desires ; and death is an actual result of 
the instinct of possession carried to an extreme limit. 

The static immobility and complete "unchangeableness" 
which the possessive instinct pretends to itself is all it 
desires is really therefore nothing but a mask for its de- 
sire to destroy. The possessive instinct is, in its profound-; 
est abyss, an amorist of death. What it secretly loves is 
the dead; for the dead alone can never defraud it of its 



THE IDEA OF COMMUNISM 337 

satisfaction. Wherever love exercises its creative energy, 
the possessive instinct relaxes its hold. Love expands and 
diffuses itself. Love projects itself and merges itself. 
The creative impulse is always centrifugal. The indrawing 
movement, the centripetal movement, is a sign of the pres- 
ence of that inert malice which would reduce all life to 
nothingness. 

The creative energy of love issues inevitably in the idea 
of communism. The idea of communism implies the com- 
plete abolition of private property; because private prop- 
erty, whether it be property in persons or in things, is 
essentially evil, is indeed the natural expression of the 
primordial inert malice, in its hostility to life. Under 
any realization, in actual existence, of the idea of com- 
munism the creative energy finds itself free to expand and 
dilate. All that heavy clogging burden of "the person- 
ally possessed" being shaken off, the natural fresh shoots 
of living beauty rise to the surface like the new green 
growths of spring when the winter's rubble has been washed 
away by the rain. 

The accursed system of private property, rooted in the 
abysmal malice of the human heart, lies like a dead weight 
upon every creative impulse. Everything is weighed and 
judged, everything is valued and measured, in relation 
to this. 

Modern Law is the system of restriction by which we 
protect private property. 

Modern religion is the system of compensation by which 
we soften the difference between inequalities in private 
property. Modern politics is the system of compromise by 
which public opinion registers its devotion to private 
property. Modern morality is the system of artificial in- 
hibitions by which the human conscience is perverted into 
regarding private property as the supreme good. 

Modern science is the system by which private property 



338 THE COMPLEX VISION 

is increased and the uses of it made more complicated. 
Modern "truth" is the system of traditional opinion by 
which the illusion of private property is established as 
"responsible" thinking, and "serious" thinking, and 
"ethical" thinking. 

Modern art is the system by which what is most gross 
and vulgar in the popular taste is pandered to in the 
interests of private property. 

The creative energy in modern life is therefore restricted 
and opposed at almost every point by the evil instinct to 
possess. Of every new idea the question is asked, "does 
it conflict with private property ? ' ' 

Of every new aesthetic judgment the question is asked, 
"does it conflict with private property?" 

Of every new moral valuation the question is asked, 
"does it conflict with private property?" And the in- 
stinct which puts these questions to every new movement 
of the creative energy is the instinct of inert malice. The 
object of life can be regarded as nothing less than the re- 
alization of the vision of the Immortals; and it is only 
under a communistic state that the vision of the Immor- 
tals can be realized; because only in such a state is that 
petrified illusion of inert malice which we name "private 
property" thoroughly got rid of and destroyed. 






CONCLUSION 

< 

No attempted articulation of the mystery, life, can be 
worthy of being named a " philosophy ' ' unless it has a 
definite bearing upon what, in the midst of that confused 
"manifold" through which we move, we call the problem 
of conduct. 

The mass of complicated impression, which from our 
first dawn of consciousness presses upon us, falls into two 
main divisions — the portion of it which comes under the 
power of our will and the portion of it which is supplied 
by destiny or circumstance, and over which our will is 
impotent. 

Superficially speaking what we call conduct only applies 
to action; but in a deeper sense it applies to that whole 
division of our sensations, emotions, ideas, and energies, 
whether it take the form of action or not, which comes in 
any measure under the power of the will. Such acts of the 
mind therefore, as are purely intellectual or emotional — 
as for instance what we call "acts of faith" — are as much 
to be considered forms of conduct as those outer visible 
material gestures which manifest themselves in action. 

This is no fantastic or extravagant fancy. It is the old 
classical and catholic doctrine, to which not only such 
thinkers as Plato and Spinoza have affixed their seal, but 
which is at the root of the deepest instincts of Buddhists, 
Christians, Epicureans, Stoics, and the mystics of all ages. 
It may be summed up by the statement that life is an art 
towards which the will must be directed; and that the 
larger portion of life manifests itself in interior contem- 
plation and only the smaller part of it in overt action. 

339 



340 THE COMPLEX VISION 

In both these spheres, in the sphere of contemplation as 
much as in the sphere of action, there exists that " given 
element" of destiny or circumstance, in the presence of 
which the will is powerless. But in regard to this given 
element it must be remembered that no individual soul 
can ever, to the end of time, be absolutely certain that in 
any particular case, whether his own or another's, he has 
finally arrived at this irreducible fatality. 

The extraordinary phenomenon of what religious people 
call " conversion/ ' a phenomenon which implies a change 
of heart so unexpected and startling as to seem miraculous, 
is a proof of how unwise it is to be in any particular case 
rigidly dogmatic as to where the sunken rock of destiny 
really begins. So many appearances have taken the shape 
of this finality, so many mirages of ' 'false fate" have 
paralysed our will, that it is wisest to believe to the very 
end of our days that our attitude to destiny can change 
and modify destiny. 

Assuming then that the articulation of the mystery of 
life which has been outlined in this book, under the name 
of "the philosophy of the complex vision," must remain 
the barest of intellectual hypotheses until it has mani- 
fested itself in "conduct"; and assuming further that this 
"conduct" includes the whole of that portion of life, 
whether contemplative or active, which can be reduced to 
a fine art by the effort of the will ; the question emerges — 
what kind of effort must the will make, both interiorally 
and exteriorally, if it desire to respond, by a rhythmic 
reciprocity, to the vision which the intellect has accepted ? 

It must be remembered that the vision upon which this 
philosophy depends and from which it derives its pri- 
mordial assumptions is not the normal vision of the human 
soul. The philosophy of the complex vision rejects the 
normal vision of the human soul on behalf of the abnormal 
vision of the human soul. Its point of view, in this mat- 



CONCLUSION 341 

ter, is that the human soul only arrives at the secret of the 
universe in those exalted, heightened, exceptional and rare 
moments, when all the multiform activities of the soul's 
life achieve a musical consummation. Its point of view 
is that since philosophy, at its deepest and highest, neces- 
sarily becomes art; and since art is a rare and difficult 
thing requiring infinite adjustments and reconciliations; 
what philosophy has really to use, in formulating any sort 
of adequate system, is the memory of such rare moments 
after they have passed away. The point of view from 
which we have made all our basic assumptions is the point 
of view that the secret of the universe is only revealed to 
man in rare moments of ecstasy; and that what man's 
reason has to do is to gather together in memory the 
broken and scattered fragments of these moments and out 
of this residuum build up and round off, as best it may, 
some coherent interpretation of life. 

From all this it follows that the first rhythmic reply 
of the human will to the vision to serve is a passion- 
ate act of what might be called "contemplative tension,' ' 
in the direction of the reviving of such memories, and in the 
direction of preparing the ground for the return of an- 
other "moment of vision" similar in nature to those that 
have gone before. 

The secret of this act of inward contemplative tension we 
have already analysed. We have found it to consist in a 
"complex" of all the primordial energies of the soul, fo- 
cussed and concentrated into what we have compared to a 
pyramidal apex-point by the power of a certain synthetic 
movement of the soul itself which we have named the apex- 
thought. 

The reply of the will, therefore, to the vision it desires 
to serve consists of a gathering together of all the energies 
of the soul into a rhythmic harmony. It may well be that 
this premeditated and deliberately constructed harmony 



342 THE COMPLEX VISION 

will have to wait for many days and years without expe- 
riencing the magic touch of the soul's apex-thought. For 
though we may passionately desire the touch of this — aye, 
and pray for it with a most desperate prayer ! — it is of the 
very nature of this mysterious thing to require for the mo- 
ment of its activity something else than the contemplative 
tension which has prepared the ground for its appearance. 
For this synthetic apex-thought, which is the soul's highest 
power, is only in a very limited sense within the power of 
the will. 

The whole matter is obscure and perhaps inexplicable; 
but it seems as if a place were required here for some philo- 
sophic equivalent of that free gift of the Gods which, in 
theological language, goes by the name of " grace." Long 
and long may the soul wait — with the hardly won rhythm 
of its multiform " complex" poised in vibrant expectation 
— before the moment arrives in which the apex-thought 
can strike its note of ecstasy. 

In the time and place of such a moment, in the accumula- 
tion of conditions which render such a moment eternal, 
chance and circumstance may play a prominent part. 
There is, however, an inveterate instinct in humanity — not 
perhaps to be altogether disregarded — according to the 
voice of which this unaccountable element of chance and 
circumstance, or, shall we say, of destiny, is itself the result 
of the interposed influence of the invisible companions. 
But whether this be so or not, the fact remains that some 
alien element of indeterminable chance or circumstance or 
destiny does frequently enter into that accumulation of ob- 
scure conditions which seem to be necessary before the 
magic of the apex-thought is roused. 

This preparing of the ground, this deliberate concentra- 
tion of the soul's energies, is the first movement of the will 
in answer to the attraction of the eternal vision discerned 
so far only as a remote ideal. The second movement of 



CONCLUSION 343 

the will has been already implied in the first, and is only a 
lifting into clear consciousness of what led the soul to make 
its initial effort. I speak of the part played by the will in 
the abysmal struggle between love and malice. This strug- 
gle was really implicit, in the beginning, in the effort the 
will made to focus the multiform energies of the complex 
vision. But directly some measure of insight into the 
secret of life has followed upon this effort, or directly, if 
the soul's good fortune has been exceptional, its great illum- 
inative moment has been reached, the will finds itself irre- 
sistibly plunged into this struggle, finds itself inevitably 
ranged, on one side or the other, of the ultimate duality. 

That the first effort of the will was largely what might 
be called an intellectual one, though its purpose was to 
make use of all the soul's attributes together, is proved by 
the fact that it is possible for human souls to be possessed 
of formidable insight into the secret of life and yet to use 
that insight for evil rather than for good. 

But the second movement of the will, of which I am now 
speaking, reveals without a shadow of ambiguity on which 
side of the eternal contest the personality in question has 
resolved to throw its weight. If, in this second movement, 
the will answers, with a reciprocal gathering of itself to- 
gether, the now far clearer attraction of the vision attained 
by its original effort, it will be found to range itself on the 
side of love against the power of malice. 

If, on the contrary, having made use of its original vision 
to understand the secret of this struggle, it allies itself with 
the power of malice against love, it will be found to produce 
the spectacle of a soul of illuminated intellectual insight 
deliberately concentrated on evil rather than good. 

But once irrevocably committed to the power of that 
creative energy which we call love, the will, though it may 
have innumerable lapses and moments of troubled dark- 
ness, never ceases from its abysmal struggle. For this is 



344 THE COMPLEX VISION 

the conclusion of the whole matter. When we speak of the 
eternal duality as consisting in a struggle between love and 
malice, what we really mean is that the human soul, concen- 
trated into the magnet-point of a passionately conscious 
will, is found varying and quivering between the pole of 
love and the pole of malice. 

The whole drama is contained within the circle of per- 
sonality ; and it would be of a similar nature if the person- 
ality in question were confronted by no other thing in the 
universe except the objective mystery. I mean that the 
soul would be committed to a struggle between its creative 
energy and its inert malice even if there were no other liv- 
ing persons in the world towards whom this love and this 
malice could be directed. 

I have compared the substance of the soul to an arrow- 
head of concentrated flames, the shaft of which is wrapped 
in impenetrable darkness while the point of it pierces the 
objective mystery. From within the impenetrable darkness 
of this invisible arrow-shaft the very substance of the soul 
is projected; and in its projection it assumes the form of 
these flames ; and the name I have given to this mysterious 
outpouring of the soul is emotion, whereof the opposing 
poles of contending force are respectively love and malice. 

The psycho-material substance of the invisible soul- 
monad is itself divided into this eternally alternating dual- 
ity, of which the projected "flames," or manifested " ener- 
gies" are the constant expression. Each of these energies 
has as its concrete "material," so to speak, the one pro- 
jected substance of the soul; and is thus composed of the 
very stuff of emotion. 

The eternal duality of this emotion takes various forms 
in these various manifestations of its one substance. . Thus 
the energy or flame of the aesthetic sense resolves itself into 
the opposed vibrations of the beautiful and the hideous. 
Thus the energy, or flame, of the pure reason resolves itself 



CONCLUSION 345 

into the opposed vibrations of the true and the false. Thus 
the energy, or flame, of conscience resolves itself into the 
opposed vibrations of the good and the evil. 

Although the remaining energies of the soul, beyond 
those I have just named — such as instinct, intuition, imag- 
ination, and the like — are less definitely divided up among 
those three "primordial ideas" which we discern as 
"truth," "beauty," and "goodness," they are subject, 
nevertheless, since their substance is the stuff of emotion, to 
the same duality of love and malice. 

It is not difficult to see how this duality turns upon itself 
in human instinct, in human imagination, and in human in- 
tuition for the creative impulse in all these energies finds 
itself opposed by the impulse to resist creation. It is when 
the will is in question that we are compelled to notice a 
difference. For the will, although itself a primal energy 
or projection of the soul, is in its inherent nature set apart 
from the other activities of the soul. 

The will is that particular aspect of the soul-monad by 
means of which it consciously intensifies or relaxes the out- 
ward pressure of emotion. From the point of view of the 
complex vision, the will, although easily differentiated from 
both consciousness and emotion, cannot be imagined as 
existing apart from these. 

Every living organism possesses consciousness in some 
degree, emotion in some degree, and will in some degree; 
and the part played by the will in the complicated ' ' nexus ' ' 
of the soul's life may be compared to that of a mechanical 
spring in some kind of a machine. In this case, however, 
the spring of the machine is fed by the oil of consciousness 
and releases its force upon the cogs and wheels of contra- 
dictory emotion. 

No theory of psychology which attempts to eliminate the 
will by the substitution of pure "motive" playing upon 
pure "action" is acceptable to us. And such an elimina- 



346 THE COMPLEX VISION 

tion is unacceptable, because, in the ultimate insight of 
the complex vision turned round upon itself, the soul is 
aware of a definite recognizable phenomenon which al- 
though present to consciousness is different from conscious- 
ness, and although intensifying and lessening emotion is 
different from emotion. 

In regard to this "problem of conduct," which I refuse 
to interpret as anything short of the whole art of life, 
contemplative as well as active, the will, being, so to say, 
the main-spring of the soul, naturally plays the most im- 
portant part. The prominence given, in moral tradition, 
to the struggle of the will with sexual desire is one of the 
melancholy evidences as to how seldom the complex vision 
of the soul has been allowed full play. 

What is called "asceticism" or " puritanism ' ' is the re- 
sult of an over-balanced concentration of the will upon the 
phenomena of sensation alone. Whereas in the rhythmic 
balance of the soul's complete faculties, what the ideal 
vision calls upon the will to do, is not to concentrate upon 
repressing sensation but to concentrate upon repressing 
malice and intensifying love. 

Sensation is only, after all, one of the energies, or pro- 
jected flames, of the soul, in its reaction to the objective 
mystery. But emotion is, as we have seen, the very soul 
itself, poured forth in its profoundest essence, and eternally 
divided against itself in the ultimate duality. Emotion is 
the psychic element which is the real substratum of sensa- 
tion, just as it is the real substratum of reason and taste. 
So that when the will concentrates itself, as it has so often 
done and so often been commended for doing, upon sensa- 
tion alone, it is neglecting and betraying its main func- 
tion, which is the repressing of malice and the liberation 
of love. 

The deliberate repression of sensation does, it is true, 
sometimes destroy our response to sensation; but it more 



CONCLUSION 347 

often intensifies the soul 's sensational life. It is only when 
the will is concentrated upon the intensifying of love and 
the suppression of malice that sensation falls into its right 
place in the resultant rhythm. There is then no question 
of either suppressing it or of indulging it. It comes and 
goes as naturally, as easily, as inevitably, as the rain or the 
snow. 

When the will is concentrated upon the suppression of 
malice and the intensifying of love all those cults of sensa- 
tion which we call vice naturally relinquish their hold upon 
us. The fact that women so rarely indulge in the worst 
excesses of these cults is due to the fact that in their close- 
ness to nature they follow more easily the rhythmic flow 
of life and are less easily tempted to isolate and detach from 
the rest any particular feeling. But women pay the pen- 
alty for this advantage when it comes to the question of 
the illuminative moments of the apex-thought. For in 
these high, rare and abnormal moments, the ordinary ebb 
and flow of life is interrupted; and something emerges 
which resembles the final effluence of a work of art that has 
touched eternity. The rhythmic movement of the apex- 
thought, when under such exceptional conditions it evokes 
this effluence, rises for a moment out of the flux of nature 
and gathers itself into a monumental vision, calm and quiet 
and immortal. It is more difficult for women to attain this 
vision than for men; because, while under normal condi- 
tions the play of their energies is better balanced and more 
harmonious than man's, it is harder for them to detach 
themselves from the ebb and flow of nature's chemistry, 
harder for them to attain the personal isolation which lends 
itself to the supreme creative act. But while such excep- 
tional moments seem to come more frequently to men than 
to women, and while a greater number of the supreme ar- 
tists and prophets of the world are of the male sex, it can- 
not be denied that the average woman, in every generation, 



348 THE COMPLEX VISION 



leads a more human and a more dignified life than the 
average man. And she does this because the special la- 
bours which occupy her, such as the matter of food, of 
cleanliness, of the making and mending of clothes, of the 
care of children and animals and flowers, of the handling of 
animate and inanimate things with a view to the increase 
of life and beauty upon the earth, are labours which have 
gathered about them, during their long descent of the cen- 
turies, a certain symbolic and poetic distinction which noth- 
ing but immemorial association with mankind's primal 
necessities is able to give. 

The same dignity of immemorial association hangs, it is 
true, about such masculine labours as are connected with 
the tilling of the earth and the sailing of the sea. Certain 
ancient and eternally necessary handicrafts, such as cannot 
be superseded by machinery, take their place with these. 
But since man's particular power of separating himself 
from Nature and dominating Nature by means of logical 
reason, physical science and mechanical devices, puts him 
in the position of continully breaking up those usages of the 
ages upon which the ritualistic element in life depends, he 
has come, by inevitable evolution, to be much more the child 
of the new and the arbitrary than woman is; and in his 
divorce from immemorial necessity has lost much of that 
symbolic distinction which the life of woman retains. 

It may thus be said that while the determining will in 
the soul of the average woman ought to be directed towards 
that exceptional creative energy which lifts the soul out of 
the flux of Nature and gives it a glimpse of the vision of 
the immortals, the determining will in the soul of the aver- 
age man ought to be directed towards the heightening of his 
ordinary consciousness so as to bring this up to the level of 
the flux of nature and to penetrate it with the memory of 
the creative moments which he has had. 

In both cases the material with which the will has to 



; 



CONCLUSION 

work is the emotions of love and of malice ; but in the case 
of man this malice tends to destroy the poetry of common 
life, while in the case of woman it tends to obstruct and 
embarrass her soul when the magic of the apex-thought stirs 
within her and an opportunity arises for that creative act 
which puts the complex vision in touch with the vision of 
the Gods. 

The philosophy of the complex vision does not discover 
in its examination of the psycho-material organism of the 
soul any differentiated ' ' faculties ' ' which can be paralleled 
by the differentiated " members " of the human body. The 
organic unity of the soul is retained, in undissipated con- 
centration, throughout whatever movement or action or 
stress of energy it is led to make. The totality of the soul 
becomes will, or the totality of the soul becomes reason, or 
the totality of the soul becomes intuition, in the same way 
as a falling body of water, or the projected stream of a 
fountain becomes whatever dominant colour of sky or air 
or atmosphere penetrates it and transforms it. What we 
have called emotion, made up of the duality of love and 
malice, is something much more integral than this. For 
the totality of the soul, which becomes reason, consciousness, 
intuition, conscience, and the like, is always composed of 
the very stuff and matter of emotion. When we say "the 
totality of the soul becomes imagination or intuition" it is 
the same thing as though we said "the emotion of the soul 
becomes imagination or intuition. ' ' 

Emotion is our name, in fact, for the psycho-material 
"stuff" out of which the organic substratum of the soul is 
made. And since this "stuff" is eternaly divided against 
itself into a positive and a negative "pole" we are com- 
pelled to assert that our ultimate analysis of the system of 
things is dualistic, in spite of the fact that the whole drama 
takes place under the one comprehensive unity of space. 

When we say that the totality of the soul becomes will, 



350 THE COMPLEX VISION 

reason, imagination, conscience, intuition and so forth, we 
do not mean that by becoming any one of these single things 
it is prevented from becoming others. We are confronted 
here by a phenomenon of organic life which, however inex- 
plicable, is of frequent occurrence in human experience. 
The ecclesiastical dogma of the Trinity is no fantastic in- 
vention of this or the other theologian. It is an inevitable 
definition of a certain body of human experience to which 
it affords a plausible explanation. 

What the philosophy of the complex vision attempts to do 
is to analyse into its component parts that confused mass of 
contradictory impressions to which the soul awakens as 
soon as it becomes conscious of itself at all. The older 
philosophers begin their adventurous journey by the dis- 
covery and proclamation of some particular clue, or catch- 
word, or general principle, out of the rational necessity of 
whose content they seek to evoke that living and breathing 
universe which impinges upon us all. Modern philosophy 
tends to reject these absolute "clues," these simplifying 
" secrets" of the system of things; but in rejecting these it 
either substitutes its own hypothetical generalizations, such 
as "spirit," "life-force," or "cosmic energy," or it con- 
tents itself with noting, as William James does, the more 
objective grouping of states of consciousness, as they weave 
their pattern on the face of the swirling waters, without 
regard to any "substantial soul" whose background of or- 
ganic life gives these "states" their concrete unity. 

The philosophy of the complex vision differs from the 
older philosophies in that it frankly and confessedly starts 
with that general situation which is also its goal. Its move- 
ment is therefore a perpetual setting-forth and a perpetual 
return; a setting forth towards a newly created vision of 
the world, and a return to that ideal of such a vision which 
has been implicit from the beginning. And this general 
situation from which it starts and to which it returns is 



CONCLUSION 351 

nothing less than the huge spectacle of the visible universe 
confronting the individual soul and implying the kindred 
existence of innumerable other souls. The fact that what 
the complex vision reveals is the primary importance of 
personality does not detract in the least degree from the 
unfathomable mysteriousness of the objective universe. 
And it does not detract from this because the unfathomable- 
ness of the universe is not a rational deduction drawn from 
the logical idea of what an objective universe would be like 
if it existed, but is a direct human experience verified at 
every movement of the soul. The universe revealed to us 
by the complex vision is a universe compounded of the 
concentrated visions of all the souls that compose it, a uni- 
verse which in its eternal beauty and hideousness has 
received the "imprimatur of the immortal Gods.' , 

The fact that such a universe is in part a creation of 
the mind, and in part a discovery made by the mind when 
it flings itself upon the unknown, does not lessen or dimin- 
ish the strangeness or unfathomableness of life. The fact 
that the ultimate reality of such a universe is to be found 
in the psycho-material substratum — where mind and matter 
become one — of the individual soul, does not lessen or di- 
minish the magical beauty or cruel terribleness of life. 

What we name by the name of "matter" is not less a 
permanent human experience, because apart from the crea- 
tive energy of some personal soul we are not able to con- 
ceive of its existence. 

The philosophy of the complex vision reduces everything 
that exists to an eternal action and re-action between the 
individual soul and the objective mystery. This action and 
reaction is itself reproduced in the eternal duality, or ebb 
and flow, which constitutes the living soul itself. And be- 
cause the psycho-material substance of the soul must be 
considered as identical, on its psychic side, with the "spir- 
itual substance" of the universe "medium" through which 



352 THE COMPLEX VISION 

all souls come into contact with one another, and identical 
on its material side with the objective mystery which is ex- 
pressed in all bodies, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion 
that the individual personality is surrounded by an ele- 
mental and universal "something" similar to itself, domi- 
nated as itself is dominated by the omnipresent circle of 
Space. 

This universal "something" must be regarded, in spite 
of its double nature, as one and the same, since it is dom- 
inated by one and the same space. The fact that the ma- 
terial aspect of this psycho-material element is constantly 
plastic to the creative energy of the soul does not reduce it 
to the level of an "illusion." The mind recreates every- 
thing it touches; but the mind cannot work in a vacuum. 
There must be something for the mind to "touch." What 
the soul touches, therefore, as soon as it becomes conscious 
of itself is, in the first place, the "material element" of its 
own inmost nature; in the second place the "material ele- 
ment" which makes it possible for all bodies to come in 
contact with one another; and in the third place the "ma- 
terial element" which is the original potentiality of all 
universes and which has been named "the objective mys- 
tery." 

To call this universal material element, thus manifested 
in a three-fold form, an illusion of the human mind is to 
destroy the integrity of language. Nothing can justly be 
called an illusion which is a permanent and universal hu- 
man experience. The name we select for this experience 
is of no importance. We can name it matter, or we can 
name it energy, or movement, or force. The experience 
remains the same, by whatever name we indicate it to one 
another. 

The philosophy of the complex vision opposes itself to all 
materialistic systems by its recognition of personality as 
the ultimate basis of life ; and it opposes itself to all ideal- 



CONCLUSION 353 

istic systems by its recognition of an irreducible "material 
element" which is the object of all thought but which is 
also, in the substratum of the soul-monad, fused and 
blended with thought itself. 

We now arrive at the conclusion of our philosophical 
journey; and we find it to be the identical point or situa- 
tion from which we originally started. Once and for all 
we are compelled to ask ourselves the question, whether, 
since personality is the ultimate secret of life and since all 
individual personalities, whether human, sub-human, or 
super-human, are confronted by one "material element' ' 
dominated by one universal material space, it is not probable 
that this "material element' ' should itself be, as it were, 
the "outward body" of one " elemental soul"? Such an 
elemental soul would have no connexion with the "Abso- 
lute Being" of the great metaphysical systems. For in 
those systems the Absolute Being is essentially impersonal, 
and can in no sense be regarded as having anything cor- 
responding to a body. 

But this hypothetical soul of the ethereal element would 
be just as definitely expressed in a bodily form as are the 
personalities of men, beasts, plants and stars. It is im- 
possible to avoid, now we are at the end of our philosophic 
journey, one swift glance backward over the travelled road ; 
and it is impossible to avoid asking ourselves the question 
whether this universal material element which confronts 
every individual soul and surrounds every individual body 
may not itself be the body of an universal living person- 
ality? Is such a question, so presented to us for the last 
time, as we look back over our long journey, a kind of 
faint and despairing gesture made by the phantom of 
"the idea of God," or is it the obscure stirring of such 
an idea, from beneath the weight of all our argument, as 
it refuses to remain buried? It seems to me much more 
than this. 



354 THE COMPLEX VISION 



; 



The complex vision seems to indicate in this matter that 
we have a right to make the hypothetical outlines of this 
thing as clear and emphatic as we can; as clear and em- 
phatic, and also, by a rigid method of limitation, as little 
overstressed and as little overpowering as we can. 

The question that presses upon us, therefore, as we glance 
backward over our travelled road, is whether or not, by 
the logic of our doctrine of personality, we are bound to 
predicate some sort of " elemental soul" as the indwelling 
personal monad belonging to the universal material element 
even as any other soul belongs to its body. 

Does it not, we might ask, seem unthinkable that any 
portion of this universal element should remain suspended 
in a vacuum without the indwelling presence of a definite 
personality of which it is the expression? Are we not led 
to the conclusion that the whole mass and volume of this 
material element, namely the material element in every 
living soul, the material element which binds all bodies to- 
gether, and the material element which composes the objec- 
tive mystery, must make up in its total weight and pressure 
the body, so to speak, of some sort of universal elemental 
soul? 

And because no personality, whether universal or individ- 
ual, can be regarded as absolute, since perpetual creation 
is the essence of life, must it not follow that this elemental 
personality must itself eternally confront and be confronted 
by an unfathomable depth of objective mystery which it 
perpetually invades with its creative energy but which it can 
never exhaust, or touch the limit of? The body of this 
being would be in fact its own "objective mystery," while 
our "objective mystery" would be recognized as disappear- 
ing in the same reality. Does this hypothesis reduce the 
tragedy of life to a negligible quantity, or afford a basis 
upon which any easy optimism could be reared? It does 
not appear so. Wherever personality existed, there the 



CONCLUSION 355 

ultimate duality would inevitably reign. And just as with 
"the invisible companions" what is evil and malicious in 
us attracts towards us what is evil and malicious in them, 
so with the elemental personality, whatever were evil and 
malicious in us would attract towards us whatever were 
evil and malicious in it. The elemental personality would 
not necessarily be better, or nobler, or wiser than we are. 
There would be no particular reason why we should wor- 
ship it, or give it praise. For if it really existed it could 
no more help being what it is than we can help being what 
we are, or the immortal gods can help being what they are. 
That such an elemental personality would have to be re- 
garded as a kind of demi-god can hardly be denied; but 
there would be no reason for asserting that our highest mo- 
ments of inspiration were due to its love for us. As with 
the rest of the "imortals" it would be sometimes pos- 
sessed by love and sometimes possessed by malice, and we 
should have not the least authority for saying that our 
supreme moments of insight were due to its inspiration. 
Sometimes they would be so. On the other hand sometimes 
our most baffled, clouded, inert, moribund, and wretched 
moments would be due to its influence. Such an elemental 
personality would have no advantage over any other per- 
sonality, except in the fact of being elemental; and this 
would give it no absolute advantage, since its universality 
would be eternally challenged by the unfathomable element 
in its own being. The "body" of such an elemental per- 
sonality would have to be regarded as the actual objective 
mystery which confronts both men and gods. It would 
have to be regarded as possessing a complex vision even as 
every other personality possesses it; and its soul-monad 
would have to be as concrete, actual, and real, as every other 
soul monad. An ethereal Being of this kind, whose body 
were composed of the whole mass of the material element 
which binds all bodies together, would have no closer con- 



356 THE COMPLEX VISION 

nexion with the soul of man than any other invisible com- 
panion. The soul of man could be drawn to it in love or 
could be repelled from it by malice, just as it can be drawn 
to any other living thing or repelled by any other living 
thing. 

That the human race should have sometimes made the 
attempt to associate such an universal personality with the 
ideal figure of Christ is natural enough. But such an asso- 
ciation wins no sanction or authority from the revelation 
of the complex vision. In one sense the figure of Christ, as 
the life of Jesus reveals it, is a pure symbol. In another 
sense, as we become aware of his love in the depths of our 
own soul, he is the most real and actual of all living beings. 
But neither as a symbol of the immortal vision, nor as 
himself an immortal God, have we any right to regard 
Christ as identical with this elemental personality. Christ 
is far more important to us and precious to us than such a 
being could possibly be. 

And just as this hypothetical personality, whose body is 
the material element which binds all bodies together, must 
not be confused with the figure of Christ, so also it is not to 
be confused with either of those primordial projections of 
pure reason, working in isolation, which we have noted as 
the " synthetic unity of apperception " and the "universal 
self." The elemental personality, if it existed, would be 
something quite different from the universal self of the 
logical reason. For the universal self of the logical reason 
includes and transcends all the other selves, whereas the 
elemental personality which has the whole weight of the 
world 's material element as its body could not transcend, or 
in any way "subsume" the least of individual things ex- 
cept in so far as the material element which is its body 
would surround all living things and bring them into con- 
tact with one another. 

The elemental personality could in no sense be called an 



CONCLUSION 357 

over-soul, because, so far from being an universal self made 
up of particular individual selves, it would be a completely 
detached soul, only related to other souls in the sense that 
all other souls come into contact with one another through 
the medium of its spiritual substance. 

According to the revelation of the complex vision the 
question of the existence or non-existence of an elemental 
eoul of this kind has no relation to the problem of human 
conduct. For the material element in the individual soul 
is fused in individual consciousness ; and therefore the spir- 
itual medium which surrounds the individual soul cannot 
impinge upon or penetrate the soul which it surrounds. 
And this conclusion is borne witness to in all manner of 
common human experience. For although we all feel dimly 
aware of vast gulfs of spiritual evil and vast gulfs of spir- 
itual beauty in the world about us, this knowledge only be- 
comes definite and concrete when we think of such gifts as 
being entirely made up of personal moods, the moods of 
mortal men, of immortal gods, and the moods, it may be, of 
this elemental personality. 

But the problem of conduct is not the problem of getting 
into harmony with any particular individual soul. It is 
the problem of getting into harmony with the creative 
vision in our own soul, which when attained turns out to 
be identical with the creative vision of every other soul in 
the universe. The conception of the elemental personality 
does not depend, as does the existence of the immortals, 
upon our consciousness of something objective and eternal 
in our primordial ideas. It depends upon our suspicion 
that no extended mass of what we call matter, however at- 
tenuated and ethereal, can exist suspended in soulless space. 

Some attenuated form of matter our universe demands, 
as the universal medium by means of which all separate 
bodies come into touch with each other; but it is hard to 
imagine an universal medium hung, as it were, in an enor- 



358 THE COMPLEX VISION 

mous vacuum. Such a medium would seem to demand, as a 
reason for its existence, some living centre of energy such, 
as that which a personal soul can alone supply. It is in this 
way we arrive at the hypothetical conception of the ele- 
mental soul. 

And our hypothesis is borne out by one very curious 
human experience. I mean the experience which certain 
natures have of a demonic or magnetic force in life which 
can be drawn upon either for good or for evil, and which 
seems in some strange sense to be diffused round us in the 
universal air. Goethe frequently refers to this demonic 
element; and others, besides Goethe, have had experience 
of it. If our hypothetical, elemental personality is to be 
regarded as a sort of demi-god, lower than the immortals 
and perhaps lower than man, we may associate it with those 
vague intimations of a sub-human life around us which 
seems in some weird sense distinct from the life of any par- 
ticular thing we know. 

The elemental personality, in this case, would be the 
cause of those various ' ' psychic manifestations ' ' which have 
sometimes been fantastically accounted for as the work of 
so-called ' ' elementals. ' ' 

But the supreme moments of human consciousness, when 
the apex-thought of the complex vision is shooting its ar- 
rows of flame into the darkness, are but slightly concerned 
with the demonic sub-human life of hypothetical elemental 
personalities. They are concerned with the large, deep, 
magical spectacle of the great cosmic drama as it unrolls 
itself in infinite perspective. They are concerned with the 
unfathomable struggle, more terrible, more beautiful, more 
real, than anything else in life, between the resistant power 
of malice and the creative power of love. Nor do they see, 
these moments, the end of this long drama. The soul cre- 
ates and is baffled in its creations. The soul loves and is 
baffled in its loving. Good and evil grow strangely mingled 



CONCLUSION 359 

as they wrestle in the bottomless abyss. And ever, above us 
and beneath us, the same immense space spreads out its en- 
circling arms. And ever, out of the invisible, the beckon- 
ing of immortal beauty leads us forward. Pain turns into 
pleasure; and pleasure turns into pain. Misery, deep as 
the world, troubles the roots of our being. Happiness, deep 
as the world, floods us with a flood like the waves of the 
ocean. All our philosophy is like the holding up of a little 
candle against a great wind. Soon, soon the candle is 
blown out : and the immense Perhaps rolls its waters above 
our heads. 

The aboriginal malice against which the Gods struggle is 
never overcome. But who can resist asking the question — 
supposing that drama once ended, that eternal duality once 
reconciled, would annihilation be the last word or would 
something else, something undreamed of, something un- 
guessed at, something "impossible," irrational, contrary to 
every philosophy that has ever sprung from the human 
brain, take the place of what we call life and substitute some 
new organ of research for the vision which we have called 
complex ? 

Who can say ? The world is still young and the immortal 
Gods are still young; and our business at present is with 
life rather than beyond-life. Confused and difficult are the 
ways of our mortality; and after much philosophizing we 
seem to be only more conscious than ever that the secret 
of the world is in something else than wisdom. 

The secret of the world is not in something that one can 
hold in one 's hand, or about which one can say ' ' Lo, here ! ' ' 
or "Lo, there!" The secret of the world is in the whole 
spectacle of the world, seen under the emotion of one single 
moment. But the memory of such a moment may be dif- 
fused over all the chances and accidents of our life and may 
be restored to us in a thousand faint and shadowy intima- 
tions. It may be restored to us in broken glimpses, in little 



360 THE COMPLEX VISION 

stirrings and ripples on the face of the water, in rumours 
and whispers among the margin-reeds, in sighings of the 
wind across the sea-bank. It may be restored to us in 
sudden flickerings of unearthly light thrown upon common 
and familiar things. It may be restored to us when the 
shadow of death falls upon the path we have to follow. 
It may be restored to us when the common ritual and the 
ordinary usages of life gather to themselves a sudden dig- 
nity from the presence of great joy or of tragic grief. For 
the stream of life flows deeper than any among us realize or 
know; deeper, and with more tragic import; deeper, and 
with more secret hope. We are all born, even the most 
lucky among us, under a disastrous eclipse. We all con- 
tain something of that perilous ingredient which belongs to 
the unplumbed depths. Deep calls unto deep within us; 
and in the circle of our mortal personality an immortal 
drama unrolls itself. Waves of unredeemed chaos roll 
upward from the abysses of our souls, and like a brackish 
tide contend with the water-springs of life. 

Over the landscape of our vision lies a shadow, a rarely 
lifted shadow, the shadow of our own malice. But the hu- 
man race has not been destined to carry on the unending 
struggle alone. Its subjective human vision has touched 
in the darkness a subjective super-human vision; and the 
symbol of the encounter of these two is the lonely figure of 
Christ. 

Looking backward, as we thus reach our conclusion, we 
see how such a conclusion was implicit all the while in the 
first movement with which we started For since the truth 
we seek is not a thing we just put out our hand and take, 
but is a mood, an attitude, a gesture of our whole being, it 
follows that whenever, and by whatever means, we reach it, 
this " truth" will always be the same, and will not be af- 
fected, when once it is reached, by the slowness or the speed 
of the method with which we approach it. Nor will it be 



CONCLUSION 361 

changed or transformed by the vision that finally grasps it, 
as it would necessarily be if it were an objective fact which 
we could each of us take into our hands. Such an objective 
fact or series of facts would, of necessity, "look differently' ' 
to every individual vision that seized upon it. But by mak- 
ing our truth, down to the very depths, a gesture, an atti- 
tude, a mood, we have already anticipated and discounted 
that fatal relativity which inserts itself like a wedge of 
distorting vapour, between any objective fact and any sub- 
jective mind. 

"Truth" cannot get blurred and distorted by the sub- s* 

jective mind when truth is regarded as that subjective 
mind 's own creation. According to the conclusion we have 
reached, every subjective mind in the universe, when it is 
rhythmically energizing, attains the same truth. For when 
subjectivity is carried to the furthest possible limit of 
rhythm and harmony, it transforms itself, of necessity, into 
objectivity. The subjective vision of all mortal minds, thus 
rendered objective by the intensity of the creative energy, 
is nothing less than the eternal vision. For as soon as the 
rhythmic harmony of the creative act has thus projected 
such a truth, such a truth receives the "imprimatur of the 
Gods" and turns out to be the truth which was implicit 
in us from the beginning. 

Thus, the reality which we apprehend is found to be 
identical with the pursuit of the ideal which we seek ; for 
what we name beauty and truth and goodness are of the 
essence of the mystery of life, and it is of their essence that 
they should ever advance and grow. 

The eternal vision includes in its own inmost rhythm the 
idea and spectacle of inexhaustible growth ; for, although it 
beholds all things "under the form of eternity," its own 
nature is the nature of a creative gesture, of a supreme 
"work of art," whereby it approximates to the ideal even 
in the midst of the real. The "form of eternity" under 



362 THE COMPLEX .VISION 

which it visualizes the world is not a dead or static eternity 
but an eternity of living growth. The peace and quiet 
which it attains is not the peace and quiet of the equilib- 
rium which means "nothingness" but the peace and quiet 
of the equilibrium which means the rhythmic movement of 
life. The truth which it creates is a truth which lends 
itself to infinite development upon lines already laid down 
from the beginning. The beauty which it creates is a 
beauty which lends itself to infinite development upon lines 
laid down from the beginning. 

And this truth, this beauty, this goodness, are all of them 
nothing less than the projection of the soul itself — of all 
the souls which constitute the system of things — in the 
mysterious outflowing of the ultimate duality. And when 
we make use of the expression "from the beginning' ' we are 
using a mere metaphorical sign-post. There is no begin- 
ning of the system of things and there is no end. "From 
the beginning' ' means nothing except "from eternity"; 
and in the immortal figure of Christ the beginning and the 
end are one. 

In my analysis of the ultimate duality which is the secret 
of the soul I have said little about sex. The modern ten- 
dency is to over-emphasize the importance of this thing 
and to seek its influence in regions it can never enter. 
Many attributes of the soul are sexless ; and since only one 
attribute of the soul, namely sensation, is entirely devoted 
to the body and unable to function except through the body, 
it is ridiculous and unphilosophical to make sex the pro- 
foundest aspect of truth which we know. The tendency to 
lay stress upon sex, at the expense of all sexless aspects of 
the soul, is a tendency which springs directly from the 
inert malice of the abyss What the instinct of sex secretly 
desires is that the very fountains of life should be invaded 
by sex and penetrated by sex. But the fountains of life 
can never be invaded by sex ; because the fountains of life 



CONCLUSION 363 

sink into that eternal vision which transcends all sex and 
reduces sex to its proper place as one single element in 
the rhythm of the universe. 

It is only by associating itself with love and malice; it 
is only by getting itself transformed into love and malice 
that the sexual instinct is able to lift itself up, or to sink 
itself down, into the subtler levels of the soul's vision. The 
secret of life lies far deeper than the obvious bodily phe- 
nomena of sex. The fountains from which life springs may 
flow through that channel but they flow from a depth far 
below these physical or magnetic agitations. And it is 
only the abysmal cunning of the inert malice, which opposes 
itself to creation that tempts philosophers and artists to lay 
such a disproportionate stress upon this thing. The great 
artists are always known by their power to transcend sex 
and to reduce sex to its relative insignificance. In the 
greatest of all sculpture, in the greatest of all music, in 
the greatest of all poetry, the difference between the sexes 
disappears. 

The inert malice delights to emphasize this thing, because 
its normal functioning implies the most desperate exertion 
of the possessive instinct known to humanity. The sexual 
instinct unless transfigured by love, tends towards death; 
because the sexual instinct desires to petrify into everlast- 
ing immobility what the creative instinct would change and 
transform. What the sexual instinct secretly desires is the 
eternal death of the object of its passion. It would -strike 
its victim if it could into everlasting immobility so that it 
could satiate its lust of possession upon it without limit and 
without end. Any object of sexual desire, untransformed 
by love, is, for the purposes of such desire, already turned 
into a living corpse. 

But although, according to the method we have been 
following, the difference between men and women is but of 
small account in the real life of the soul, it remains that hu- 



364: THE COMPLEX VISION 

manity has absurdly and outrageously neglected the espe- 
cial vision of the woman, as, in her bodily senses and her 
magnetic instincts, she differs from man We may well 
hope that with the economic independence of women, which 
is so great and desirable a revolution in our age, individual 
women of genius will arise, able to present, in philosophy 
and art, the peculiar and especial reaction to the universe 
which women possess as women We may well desire such 
a consummation in view of the fact that all except the very 
greatest of men have permitted their vision of the world 
to be perverted and distorted by their sex-instinct. 

Could women of genius arise in sufficient numbers to 
counteract this tendency, such sex-obsessed masculine ar- 
tists would be shamed into recognizing the narrowness of 
their perverted outlook. As it is, what normal women of 
talent do is simply to copy and imitate, in a diluted form, 
the sex-distortions of man's narrower vision. Sex-obsessed 
male artists have seduced the natural intelligence of the 
most talented women to their own narrow and limited view 
of life. 

But it still remains that what the true artists of the world 
for ever seek — whether they be male or female — is not the 
partial and distorted vision of man as a man, or of woman 
as a woman, but the rhythmic and harmonious vision of 
the human soul as it allies itself with the vision of the im- 
mortals. Women in private life, and in private conversa- 
tion, disentangle themselves from the prejudices of men, 
but, as soon as they touch philosophy and art, they tend to 
deny their natural instincts and imitate the sex-obsessed in- 
stincts of man. But this tendency is already beginning to 
collapse under the freer atmosphere of economic independ- 
ence; and in the future we may expect such a fierce con- 
flict between the sex- vision of woman and the sex-vision of 
man, that the human soul will revolt against both such par- 
tialities and seek the " ampler ether and diviner air' 7 of 



CONCLUSION 365 

a vision that has altogether transcended the difference of 
sex. _ 

As we look back over the travelled road of our attempt 
to articulate the ultimate secret, there arises one last stu- 
pendous question, not to meet which would be to shirk the 
heaviest weight of the problem. We have reached the con- 
clusion that the secret of Nature is to be found in jpersonal- 
Jtv. We have reached the further conclusion that per- 
sonality demands, for the integrity of its inmost self, an 
actual "soul-monad." We are faced with a * 'universe, ' ' 
then, made up entirely of living souls, manifested in so- 
called animate, or so-called inanimate bodies. Everything 
that our individual mind apprehends is therefore the body 
of a soul, or a portion of the body of a soul, or the presence 
of a soul that needs no incarnation. The soul itself is com- 
posed of a mysterious substance wherein what we call mind 
and what we call matter are fused and merged. What I 
have named throughout this book by the name of the ob- 
jective mystery is therefore, when we come to realize the 
uttermost implications of our method, nothing more than 
the appearance of all the bodies of all the souls in the world 
before the creative act of our own particular soul has vis- 
ualized such a spectacle. We can never see the objective 
mystery as it is, because directly we have seen it, that is 
to say, the appearance of all the adjacent bodies of all the 
souls within our reach, it ceases to be the objective mystery 
and becomes the universe we know. 

The objective mystery is therefore no real thing at all, 
but only the potentiality of all real things, before the ' ' real 
thing" which is our individual soul comes upon the scene 
to create the universe* It is only the potentiality of the 
"universe" which we have thus named, only the idea of the 
general spectacle of such an universe, before any universe 
has actually appeared. 

And since the final conclusion of our attempt at articula- 



366 THE COMPLEX VISION 

tion should rigorously eliminate from our picture every- 
thing that is relatively unreal, in favour of what is rela- 
tively real, it becomes necessary, now at the end, to elim- 
inate from our vision of reality any substantial basis for 
this, "potentiality of all universes," and to see how our 
actual universe appears when this thing has been with- 
drawn as nothing but an unreal thing. The substantial 
basis for what we actually see becomes therefore no mere 
potential universe, or objective mystery, but something 
much more definite than either of these. The spectacle of 
Nature, as we behold it, becomes nothing else than the 
spectacle of all the living bodies that compose the universe, 
each one of them with its corresponding invisible soul- 
monad. 

The movement of thought to which I have throughout 
this book given the name of "the struggle with the objective 
mystery" remains the same. In these cases, names are of 
small account. But since it is a movement of thought 
which itself culminates in the elimination of the "objec- 
tice mystery," it becomes necessary to "think through" 
the stage of thought which this term covered, and articulate 
the actual cause of this movement of the mind. 

The cause of the spectacle of the universe, as it presents 
itself to us in its manifold variety, is the presence of innu- 
merable visible bodies which are themselves the manifes- 
tation of innumerable invisible souls. Everything that we 
see and touch and taste and smell and hear is a portion of 
some material body, which is the expression of some spir- 
itual soul. 

The universe is an immense congeries of bodies, moved 
and sustained by an immense congeries of souls. But it re- 
mains that these souls, inhabiting these bodies, are linked 
together by some mysterious medium which makes it pos- 
sible for them to communicate with one another. What is 
this mysterious medium ? What we have already indicated, 



CONCLUSION 367 

here and there in this book, leads us at this point to our 
natural conclusion. Such a medium may well be nothing 
less than that elemental soul, with the universal ether as its 
bodily expression, the existence of which we have already 
suggested as a more than probable hypothesis. If the omni- 
present body of this elemental soul is the material at- 
mosphere or medium which unites all material bodies, 
surely we are justified in assuming that the invisible pri- 
mordial medium which binds all souls together, which hy- 
pothetically binds them together even before they have, by 
the interaction of their different visions, created the uni- 
verse, is this universal "soul of the elements. " Only a 
spiritual substance is able to unite spiritual substances. 
And only a material substance is able to unite material sub- 
stances. Thus we are justified in assuming that while the 
medium which unites all bodies is the universal body of the 
elemental soul, the medium which unites all souls is the 
omnipresent soul-monad of this elemental being. It must 
however be remembered that this uniting does not imply 
any sort of spiritual including or subsuming of the souls 
thus united. They communicate with one another by 
means of this medium; but the integrity of the medium 
which unites them does not impinge at any point upon their 
integrity. 

Thus, at the end of our journey, we are able, by this final 
process of drastic elimination, to reduce the world in which 
we live to a congeries of living souls. Some of these souls 
possess what we name animate bodies, others possess what 
we name inanimate bodies. For us, these words, animate J 
and inanimate, convey but slight difference in meaning. 
Between a stone, which is part of the body of the earth, 
and a leaf which is part of the body of a plant, and a lock 
of hair which is part of the body of a man, there may be 
certain unimportant chemical differences, justifying us in 
using the terms animate and inanimate. But the essential 



368 THE COMPLEX VISION 

fact remains that all we see and taste and touch and smell 
and hear, all, in fact, that makes up the objective universe 
which surrounds us, is a portion of some sort of living 
body, corresponding to some sort of living soul. 

Our individual soul-monad, then, able to communicate 
with other soul-monads, whether mortal or immortal, 
through the medium of omnipresent soul-monads of the uni- 
versal ether finds itself dominated, as all the rest are dom- 
inated, by one inescapable circle of unfathomable space. 
Under the curve of this space we all of us live, and under 
the curve of this space those that are mortal among us, 
die. When we die, if it be our destiny not to survive death, 
our souls vanish into nothingness ; and our bodies become a 
portion of the body of the earth. But if we have entered 
into the eternal vision we have lost all fear of death; for 
we have come to see that the thing which is most precious 
to us, the fact that love remains undying in the heart of the 
universe, does not vanish with our vanishing. Once having 
attained, by means of the creative vision of humanity and 
by means of the grace of the immortals, even a faint glimpse 
into this mystery, we are no longer inclined to lay the credit 
of our philosophizing upon the creative spirit in our indi- 
vidual soul. The apex-thought of the complex vision has 
given us our illuminated moments. But the eternal vision 
to which those moments led us has filled us with an immense 
humility. 

And in the last resort, when we turn round upon the 
amazing spectacle of life it is of the free gift of the gods, 
or of the magical love hidden in the mystery of nature, that 
we are led to think, rather than of any creative activity in 
ourselves. The word "creative" like the word "objective 
mystery," has served our purpose well in the preceding 
pages. But now, as we seek to simplify our conclusion to 
the uttermost, it becomes necessary to reject much of the 
manifold connotation which hangs about this word; al- 



CONCLUSION 369 

though in this case also, the stage of thought which it cov- 
ers is a real movement of the mind. 

But the creative activity in the apex-thought of our com- 
plex vision is, after all, only a means, a method, a gesture, 
which puts us into possession of the eternal vision. When 
once the eternal vision has been ours, the memory of it does 
not associate itself with any energy of our own. The mem- 
ory of these eternal moments associates itself with a mood 
in which the creative energy rests upon its own equipoise, 
upon its own rhythm; a mood in which the spectacle of 
the universe, the magic of Nature, the love in all living 
souls, the contact of mortality with immortality, become 
things which blend themselves together; a mood in which 
what is most self-assertive in our personality seems to lose 
itself in what is least self-assertive, and yet in thus losing 
itself is not rendered utterly void. 

For all action, even the ultimate act of faith, must issue 
in contemplation; and this is the law of life, that what 
we contemplate, that we become. He who contemplates 
malice becomes malicious. He who contemplates hideous- 
ness becomes hideous. He who contemplates unreality be- 
comes unreal. 

If the universe is nothing but a congeries of souls and 
bodies, united by the soul and the body which fill universal 
space, then it follows that "the art of philosophy" consists 
in the attempt to attain the sort of ' ' contemplation ' ' which 
can by the power of its love enter into the joy and the suf- 
fering of all these living things. 

Thus in reaching a conclusion which tallies with our rar- 
est moments of super-normal insight we discover that we 
have reached a conclusion which tallies with our moments 
of profoundest self-abasement. In these recurrent moods 
of humiliation it seems ridiculous to speak of the creative 
or the destructive energy of the mind. What presents 
itself to us in such moods is a world of forms and shapes 



370 THE COMPLEX VISION 

that we can neither modify nor obliterate. All we can do 
is to reflect their impact upon us and to note the pleasure of 
it or the pain. But when even in the depths of our weak- 
ness we come to recognize that these forms and shapes are, 
all of them, the bodily expressions of souls resembling our 
own, the nostalgia of the great darkness is perceptibly lifted 
and a strange hope is born, full of a significance which can- 
not be put into words. The world-stuff, or the objective 
mystery, out of which the eternal vision has been created 
is now seen to be the very flesh and blood of a vast company 
of living organisms; and it has become impossible to con- 
template anything in the world without the emotion of mal- 
ice or the emotion of love. If ever the universe, as we 
know it now, is dissolved into nothingness, such an end of 
things will be brought about either by the complete victory 
of malice or by the complete victory of love. 



THE END 



3477 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Sept. 2004 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



m 



ffi '('twit! 

■ 

■ 







HP 

as KkH 2881 



